HIST1083 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Sonni Ali, Columbian Exchange, Al-Mansur
Describe trade routes in Africa before European infiltration?
They were long distance and a hardship. They had been in existence for thousands of years.
Trade was land based. Trade routes ran from west to east
How did rapid increase in volume affect African trade routes?
There were more goods, more traders, and more money to be made.
What were major goods sold along African trade routes?
Silver, slaves, sugar, spices, furs, weapons
What is polycentrism?
The principle of organization of a region around several political, social, or financial
centers. For example, the San Francisco Bay area has no single center, but several.
How were global trade routs polycentric?
You had to go to specific ports before going to the next one. Trade was indirect, and took a
while.
Describe properties of global trade.
• Routes were dominated by sea routes (hard to travel on land)
• Trade was empire led (British-East India Company)
• Port Cities
• Technology favored sea travel
Describe the silver boom and how it affected global trade (and specifically Spain and China)
There was a huge supply of silver in the America. People used silver as a universal
currency. Spain (who controlled the Americas) and china (who traded a lot and received a
ton of silver but didn’t spend a lot of silver) received a lot of silver, and became very rich.
However, the huge influx of silver caused inflation and eventually undermined the
countries.
What was the Potosi mine?
Huge silver mine in Bolivia that made people very rich
Describe North African trade before European infiltration?
• Gold, salt, and slaves
• Muslims can’t enslave fellow muslims, so they traveled to African to enslave
nonmuslims
• North Africa was a transit hub
• Trade was land based
South African trade?
Gold and ivory, land based
Central African trade?
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Gold and slaves, land based
What were the major African kingdoms? (4)
Songhai, Kongo, Ethiopia, and Muwanamutapa
Describe religion in Africa
• Syncretism: mixing of different faiths and beliefs
• People practiced Islam and Christianity, but would also turn to native witch
doctors because that’s what ancestors did
Where was the Songhai empire?
Northwest Africa
Describe the elite of the Songhai empire
Muslims (not the majority)
Who founded the Songhai empire?
Sonni Ali
What were the major cities of the Songhai empire? (3)
• Gao- capital
• Timbuktu- major city and trading center
• Jenne- major city
What did Al Mansur do?
Attacked the Songhai empire because he wanted control of salt trade
Why was salt so important?
• Important for food and preservation
• Became a currency for trade
Describe Timbuktu
• Had a mystical reputation
• Very important for slave, salt, and gold trade
• Very good location- close enough to desert to be last stop on way to east and far
enough west to be reachable from main cash of slaves coming from west area
• Became center of learning
• Huge center of Islamic study
• Some of oldest mosques in world
How did the new era change African trade?
• Increased demand for slaves
• Trade shifts to flow from east to west
• Thousand-year inland routes fade
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Define Columbian exchange
Transfer of plants, animals, people, culture, disease between Old and New Worlds
How did the age of discovery affect the world?
• Created bridge between old and new worlds
• Native American population decimated
• Americas plugged into global exchange network
How did the Columbian exchange increase diversity, which destroyed diversity?
Increased diversity because new plants, animals, and people were brought to different
lands, but this made most of the land/goods throughout the world to be the same
What were 3 foods that came from the old world originally?
Apples, bananas, wheat (mangos, grapes)
What were 3 foods that came from the new world originally?
Corn, tomatoes, potatoes (chocolate, tobacco, rubber)
How were potatoes important?
Could survive in bad conditions and climate changes so it became a staple for poor people
What natural crop is corn derived from?
Teosinte
How was corn created?
Teosinte was repeatedly crossbred with eastern gamagrass
How did corn affect animals?
People fed corn to animals to test it, once they realized animals could also eat corn it
became animal food in order to increase meat production
Describe Milpa
A farming system in which up to a dozen different crops could grow in a single field at the
same time. It avoided the need for fertilizer, plows, and a fallow period. It was efficient and
created a high calorie output, and helped population growth.
How was chocolate used in the old and new world
Old: coco beans used for currency and to represent social status
New: chocolate represented social status and was the drink of choice for elite. There was a
huge demand
How did sugar affect slavery and the economy?
Cultivation of sugar in carribean was biggest driver of demand of slavery which drove
global capitalism. Couldn’t enslave native americans dying out, trying to convert to
Christianity, awkward) so slaves were imported from Africa
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Document Summary
They had been in existence for thousands of years. There were more goods, more traders, and more money to be made. The principle of organization of a region around several political, social, or financial centers. For example, the san francisco bay area has no single center, but several. You had to go to specific ports before going to the next one. Describe properties of global trade: routes were dominated by sea routes (hard to travel on land, trade was empire led (british-east india company, port cities, technology favored sea travel. Describe the silver boom and how it affected global trade (and specifically spain and china) There was a huge supply of silver in the america. Spain (who controlled the americas) and china (who traded a lot and received a ton of silver but didn"t spend a lot of silver) received a lot of silver, and became very rich.
