Unit
Years: 4th century BCE – 16th century CE
Culture & Community
Economy & Society
Prior knowledge of the geography of Africa is necessary to locate West Africa. An understanding of the geographic features of the Sahara, Sahel, and Savanna as well as the Niger River in West Africa would be beneficial.
Specifically knowledge or resources to support students in their understanding of world geography and religion include:
You may want to consider prior to teaching this lesson: The Gold Road Why There? Historical Geographies of West Africa
You may want to consider after teaching this lesson: Memory and Knowledge: The Story of Sundiata Keita West African Objects & Artifacts
Great cities emerged in the West African Sahel region as early as the 8th century BCE. The Sahel was a region where people could grow crops, raise livestock, source gold and other goods, and develop commerce. City life is therefore an important part of the history, and present reality, of West Africans. Major cities include Gao, Timbuktu, Niani, Kumbi-Saleh, and Jenne-Jeno. Studying these cities reveals aspects of people’s cultures, knowledge, literacies, religions, and economic activities. It also reveals aspects that made the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai powerful.
The stereotype that the continent of Africa is only a vast area of grassland and desert circulates in common understandings, reinforced by media and schools. Africa is in fact a continent of major cities, both past and present. This is crucial information to impart to students, as in current day, 95 million inhabitants of Africa live in 11 urban areas and the continent has 7,600 urban centers. (https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/africa-s-urbanisation-dynamics-2022_b1a10512-en). By 2042, the World Bank estimates that the number of people living in cities in Africa will double to more than 1 billion (https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2019-july-2019/africa%E2%80%99s-megacities-magnet-investors). Teaching about African urbanism, old and current, contributes to a curriculum that changes the narrative and moves students’ perception away from the idea of the village and the jungle, toward grounding the life of people in cities.
There are many cities today that are bustling metropolises that can be highlighted. A few of note from recent population indexes include: (https://www.african-cities.org/getting-to-know-africas-100-largest-cities/)
It is also important to recognize that cities are not new to Africa and that West Africa was home to early urban centers that were major city-states. Throughout this unit, students will learn content and participate in activities to support their understanding that cities were the sites of great economic activity, trade, and also of intellectual production.
Looking Back–
The Sahara Desert covers 3.3 million square miles, an area about the size of the United States. Although it is extremely dry, receiving less than 3 inches of rainfall a year, it was a much wetter region from 10,000 BCE to 5,000 years ago. Around 5,000 BCE, the Sahara saw declined precipitation and by the year 300 BCE stabilized into the dry Sahara we know today. When this occurred, people moved northward toward the Mediterranean, Northeast toward the Nile, and southward into the eco-region belt known as the Sahel, which means “shore” in Arabic (in contrast to Sahara, which translates to “desert”). Specifically, the area around the Niger river bend, called Mema may have been settled between 4,000 BCE (Gomez, 15). Historian Michael Gomez writes that two important cities, among others, emerged between 800 BCE and 400 BCE: the ancient city of Jenne-Jeno and the nearby city, Dia. Gao and Timbuktu were also important cities.
The cities of Jenne-Jeno, Gao, and Timbuktu are situated on or near the Niger River, a river crucial to consolidating the span of the kingdoms of Ghana (500-1235), Mali (1235-1469), and Songhai (1469-1591) in this region of the Savanna and Sahel. The Niger, much like the Nile, floods yearly and provided water, transportation, and fertile land on which millet, sorghum, and later rice could grow.
The camel was introduced from Arabia around 300 BCE and it became a key animal whose biology allowed for trans-Saharan caravan crossings, systematizing the interlinkage of cities with North Africa (such as Sijilmasa and Fez in Morocco), Europe, and the Arabian peninsula. These cities were also interlinked with other world regions from a very early period. Gomez cites archeological evidence that glass beads found in West Africa were made in Asia during the Han dynasty as well as during the Roman era.
There are many other cities of importance to the great kingdoms and the trans-Saharan trade. The following provides a brief overview of a few of note:
As the region became Islamized in the 9th century through trade and education, Timbuktu, among other cities, quickly developed as a major center of libraries and universities – in other words a hub of teaching and learning. The now famed libraries of Timbuktu have a long history, and the thousands of manuscripts the libraries house are now made available to the public by one of the librarians, Dr. Abdel Kader Haidara, in a magnificent online digitization project that showcases the immense knowledge in science, religion, astrology, medicine, geography and many other subjects. See information about the wealth of information you can find in the manuscripts here (https://artsandculture.google.com/project/timbuktu-manuscripts)
and the full visual rendering of the manuscripts here: https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/the-timbuktu-manuscripts/BQE6pL2U3Qsu2A
People built amazing buildings as centers of knowledge production in cities. Some of the famous ones include:
Cities were hubs of trade. Sijilmasa, a city South of the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in the Tafialt Oasis was a gateway for goods that people moved across the Sahara on camel caravans. Messier and Fili write in Caravans of Gold that West African Gold passed through Sijilmasa as early as the 4th century. Goods flowing to and from West Africa via Sijilmasa markets included gold, ivory, ebony, salt, books, textiles, leather, and ceramics. Enslaved people were also brought to Sijilmasa. Tadmekka, in Mali was a market town that processed gold. Awdaghost, in present day Mauritania, was a gateway city of trade as well “The people of Awdaghost enjoy extensive benefits and huge wealth. The market there is at all times full of people, so that owing to the great crowd and the noise of voices it is almost impossible for a man to hear the words of one sitting beside him. Their transactions are in gold and they have no silver” (Al Bakri, writing in Levtzion and Hopkins 1981 (2000), 68).
Badawi, Z. (2020). Desert Empires in the BBC African History Series [Episode 10] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shEU4PQUxxA&list=PLajyiGz4JeyPq2lpEt2skZRhQsAspIQCp&index=11&t=38s on 12/5/2023
Berzock. K. B. (2019). Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa. Princeton University Press.
Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time. Block Museum of Art “Teachers’ Guide.“ . Northwestern University Retrieved from https://caravansofgold.org/resources/further-resources/ on 9/6/2022.
Conrad, D. (2005) Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, Songhai. Retrieved from: https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files3/david_c._conrad_empires_of_medieval_west_africabook4me.org_.pdf on 12/5/2023
French, H. W. (2021). Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the making of the modern world, 1471 to the Second World War. New York: Liveright Publishing Company.
Gold Road Lessons: Gold, Goods and Gold Road. Retrieved from https://cfas.howard.edu/gold-road/teaching-resources on 12/5/2023.
Gomez, M. (2018). African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. Princeton University Press.
Levtzion, N. and Hopkins, JFP (1981/2000). Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. Markus Wiener Publishers: Princeton, NJ.
The Gold Road. Howard University Center for African Studies. Retrieved from http://thegoldroad.org/map.aspx
The stereotype that the continent of Africa is only a vast area of grassland and desert circulates in common understandings, reinforced by media and schools. Ensuring that students understand that Africa is in fact a continent of major cities is crucial information to impart to students, as in current day, 95 million inhabitants of Africa live in urban areas and the continent has thousands of urban centers.
Teaching about African urbanism, old and current, contributes to a curriculum that changes the narrative and moves students’ perception away from the idea of the village and the jungle, toward grounding the life of people in cities.
This unit uses as central tool The Gold Road, an interactive online map (http://thegoldroad.org/map.aspx#). The Gold Road serves as a library of detailed content for independent or scaffolded student inquiry and research. It allows students to explore and make connections in one time period’s people, places, trade items, buildings and routes, or across several time periods. Students can also choose a more focused inquiry on a specific item, a place, or a person and their significance. Thus a student can trace the linkages between people, items, places, routes, and significant buildings or focus on one aspect of this history. A student can make meaning linking micro aspects of this history (e.g. a person or a building) with macro aspects (the role it/they/he/she played in the whole kingdom).
It is strongly recommended that you test out and explore how the map works on your own before launching any activity that uses the map. In this way, you can help answer any technical questions about how to retrieve information and how the layers and markers work before students are tasked with an inquiry.
Detailed instructions and student handouts on How to use The Gold Road map and some of its features are available through the Digital Toolkit.
Teachers may modify and adapt these instructions as they introduce the map and activities to students throughout the unit.
For over two thousand years, there have been major cities in West Africa, especially in the Sahel region South of the Sahara and along the Niger river. Yet, if you were to ask many people what comes to mind when they think of Africa it would likely not be an image of an urban metropolis. This is in part due to common stereotypes. The real facts around the development of African people and countries point to great cities that reflect a high level of complex societies and scholarship that was achieved by West Africans. Studying these cities reveals aspects of people’s cultures, knowledge, literacies, religions, and economic activities.
People moved to the region of the Sahel when the Sahara began to dry up about 5,000 years ago. There is evidence of early urban settlements around 800 to 400 BCE and of first cities from 500 BCE to 400 BCE. The cities of Jenne-Jeno, Gao, and Timbuktu are situated on or near the Niger River. These cities were important places in the empires of Ghana (500-1235), Mali (1235-1469), and Songhai (1469-1591). They were also significant in the ways that they were connected with other world regions such as Europe, Arabia, and Asia from a very early period. Archeologists have found artifacts such as glass beads that came all the way from Asia and Rome.
These cities were reflective of the high level of society that was attained in West Africa. In cities such as Jenne-Jeno, one of the oldest cities in the region, people smelted iron to produce high quality goods. In Timbuktu, a city at the Niger river bend, people wrote thousands of manuscripts that filled libraries. These manuscripts covered art, medicine, philosophy, science and religion and ensured that the history and scholarship of the past is accessible until today. Gao, an important historic city and capital of the kingdom of Songhai, is also still a bustling city on the Niger river today.
These historic cities were just the beginning. In the present day, the continent of Africa is now home to fifty four different countries, each of which is made up of rural, suburban and urban areas. Currently, 95 million inhabitants of Africa live in large urban areas and over 600 million more live in smaller urban centers.
Select the activities and sources you would like to include in the student view and click “Launch Student View.”
It is highly recommended that you review the Teaching Tips and sources before selecting the activities to best meet the needs and readiness of your students. Activities may utilize resources or primary sources that contain historical expressions of racism, outdated language or racial slurs.
Ask students to brainstorm key adjectives and/or activities that may represent what United States city life is like from lived experience (if they live in a city) or prior knowledge and experience (if they live in a more rural or suburban area). Make a list that will be visible for students to see. Examples may include:
After a short generative brainstorm, ask students to revisit the list and consider if the current list would also be representative of what African city life is like (from lived experience (if they have lived or visited Africa) or prior knowledge and/or experience (if they have not lived or visited Africa).
It is recommended that this activity be completed across two 60 minute class periods to provide adequate time to study each city. If time does not allow, it is possible for this lesson to be completed as a Jigsaw, with three groups, each studying one city and presenting their findings to the whole class but it should be noted that the timeframe needed for Timbuktu is longer than that of Gao or Jenne-Jeno/Djene.
Depending on access to classroom technology, divide students up in order to ensure that each student or group has access to a tablet or computer for this online activity. If you have not already done so, introduce your students to the Gold Road Map using the detailed instructions and student handouts on How to use The Gold Road available through the Digital Toolkit.
Distribute the student context for students to read.
Then, invite students to learn even more about three great cities in West Africa and the roles each played in supporting community, networks, knowledge, economic activities, and kingdoms. If completing with Gr.5/upper elementary students it is recommended to do this activity as a whole group or in supported small groups in order to support vocabulary.
Once online, ask your students to set up their display to show the West African cities that they will be exploring. You can do this by sharing this link or by modeling for students how to visit http://thegoldroad.org/map.aspx# and make the appropriate selections.
At the conclusion of the class session(s) students should either share with the group, or individually through an exit ticket, responses to “What key features did you learn about your city and what surprised you?
An extension activity would be to ask that students compare their cities’ features, economic, and cultural activities.
Vocabulary & Key Terms:
Student Context:
For over two thousand years, there have been major cities in West Africa, especially in the Sahel region South of the Sahara and along the Niger river. Yet, if you were to ask many people what comes to mind when they think of Africa it would likely not be an image of an urban metropolis. This is in part due to common stereotypes. The real facts around the development of African people and countries point to great cities that reflect a high level of complex societies and scholarship that was achieved by West Africans. Studying these cities reveals aspects of people’s cultures, knowledge, literacies, religions, and economic activities.
People moved to the region of the Sahel when the Sahara began to dry up about 5,000 years ago. There is evidence of early urban settlements around 800 to 400 BCE and of first cities from 500 BCE to 400 BCE. The cities of Jenne-Jeno, Gao, and Timbuktu are situated on or near the Niger River. These cities were important places in the empires of Ghana (500-1235), Mali (1235-1469), and Songhai (1469-1591). They were also significant in the ways that they were connected with other world regions such as Europe, Arabia, and Asia from a very early period. Archeologists have found artifacts such as glass beads that came all the way from Asia and Rome.
These cities were reflective of the high level of society that was attained in West Africa. In cities such as Jenne-Jeno, one of the oldest cities in the region, people smelted iron to produce high quality goods. In Timbuktu, a city at the Niger river bend, people wrote thousands of manuscripts that filled libraries. These manuscripts covered art, medicine, philosophy, science and religion and ensured that the history and scholarship of the past is accessible until today. Gao, an important historic city and capital of the kingdom of Songhai, is also still a bustling city on the Niger river today.
These historic cities were just the beginning. In the present day, the continent of Africa is now home to fifty four different countries, each of which is made up of rural, suburban and urban areas. Currently, 95 million inhabitants of Africa live in large urban areas and over 600 million more live in smaller urban centers.
An “I Am” poem is a type of poem in which the poet reflects on their identity, thoughts, feelings, and experiences or those of a hypothetical or imaginary character. The poem typically follows a structured format where each line or stanza begins with the phrase “I am” followed by a description or statement.
For this performance task, students will create an “I am” poem for the city of Gao; Jenne-Jeno/Djenne or Timbuktu. Students should use creativity and descriptive language but also reference factual information gathered from completed Activity 2 Question Sheets. Students should write the “I am” poem speaking and writing as the soul of a city, in prose or poetry supported by a drawing.
The Adinkra symbol Sankofa, symbolizes the importance of learning from the past. The Sankofa bird is depicted looking backward while carrying an egg on its back, symbolizing the idea of taking wisdom from the past into the present.
Reflect back on information you learned about the West African cities of Gao; Jenne-Jeno/Djenne or Timbuktu. In the spirit of “Sankofa”, consider how this information is used or is relevant to how we live in the present day. Write an essay to share your knowledge and insights.
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