The Gold Road
Vocabulary & Key Terms:
- Amazigh peoples
- Bambuk
- Buré
- Empire
- Ghana
- Gold
- Islam
- Kingdom
- Mali
- Sahel
- Savannah
- Songhai
- Timbuktu
- Trade
- Wealth
- West Africa
Student Context:
Three great empires thrived in the Sahel region of West Africa, from the year 500 to 1591. These are the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. People in these empires were not isolated from the rest of the world. Rather, they built their economies on trade of many items, and in particular, on the trade of gold which was sourced further South, in the forested area of the Savannah. The trade reached faraway places, including Europe and Asia.
The trade enabled the kings of these empires to levy taxes and thus to amass great fortunes. In the 10th century CE, Islam came to West Africa and, as is custom in Islam, a pilgrimage (the Hajj) to Mecca is an important pillar of faith. Many kings of Mali traveled to Mecca. One of them, Mansa Musa brought with him great riches and displays of wealth and power. Through traders, pilgrimages, and also through geographers’ travel and writings, outsiders came to know of West Africans’ gold and the resource became sought-after and desired by many.