The Sahara and the Indian Ocean - Essay Example

Insert Insert Grade Insert 3rd December Importance of the Sahara and the Indian Ocean in ancient African history In the ancient Africa, features that existed and those that exist today played an important role in bringing together the people that lived in different parts of Africa. Among the features in Africa that contributed to the development of linkages between people include such like the Indian Ocean and Sahara desert, which were important places for trading activities. These areas established connection between people who lived in Africa and beyond through exchange of products. In some parts of Sahara, trading was the most dominant economic activity while in some others there were seasonal agricultural activities while still others practiced mining. Sahara region connected people from eastern, southern, central, north and some parts of western Africa. Among the countries that were touched are Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Congo, Egypt, and Nigeria among others. These countries contributed different commodities for trade according to their daily activities. For example, the southern Sahara region was a famous area in production of minerals, Egypt was well known for production of sorghum and Nigeria provided yams to the trading interaction (Giblin 10-13). These areas that were well known in production of agricultural products were part of the great hinterland that was served by the Indian Ocean. The areas were, therefore, linked to the outside world by the Indian Ocean that opened trade with Arabs and other people in the world. However, the trading interactions were not involving Africans and Arabs but Africans contributed a lot to the trade among themselves. The trading activities in that area involved exchange through barter trade of commodities that included foodstuffs and minerals as per different needs of different people in those regions. This is an evaluation of the activities that prevailed in the ancient Africa involving the Sahara Region and the Indian Ocean to inform the importance of these two features of African geography. The influence it brought to the people that lived in those areas as well as the benefits they reaped from these interactions discussed. There are things that informed the interactions between the people in these parts of Africa and were aimed at benefiting the people that engaged in them. For example, noting that most of the Sahara region is characterized by unreliable precipitation, there was serious need to get ways to acquire food that was not sufficient in those areas. For Egypt, sorghum was produced only after major floods that used to come in rare occasions. In other places, growing of agricultural products was not limited by the environmental conditions of weather. Some of the areas bordering Sahara regions were humid and supported agricultural production. Examples of such areas include the northern Tanzania, Zaire and Cameroon which supported growth of foods and rearing of livestock (Giblin 15). Another thing that characterized the interactions of the people of Sahara region and Indian Ocean was the spread of agricultural activities. In the initial times, the people who practiced livestock keeping were found in wet regions in the Sahara region. However, when the condition of these areas grew dry, these people migrated to wetter regions that would produce pasture for their cattle. A notable example is when livestock keepers were forced to wet region of Egypt from the middle parts of Sahara. Some of cattle keepers were forced to move up to the rift valley of east Africa (Giblin 8). Some of the agriculturalists that lived in the Sahara deserts retreated with their crop growing into wet regions in the far west of Africa. For instance, speakers of Niger-Congo, who were known for growing of yams and plantains (bananas), moved to the far west to occupy the current day Nigeria. These people adapted to these humid conditions of the world (Giblin 7). The interactions that existed with the populace in that region promoted emergence of a culture of crop production among the people who were living in those areas. This led to the spread of agriculture in Africa as a result of Sahara desert interactions. Influence of language of communications were realized when the people interacted during trade in both the Sahara and Indian Ocean. For instance, there rose a language as a result of the interactions between the Arabs and Africans who lived in costal areas of Africa. This interaction resulted in Swahili, which was a blend between the native African language of the Africans living at the coast and Arabs who came to east Africa for business. There were also languages that were formed as a result of interactions between the Africans who traded with each other in the Sahara desert. These developed a business lingua-franca that made sure that they could understand each other in selling and buying. These languages developed to become permanent languages for the people who stay in those areas in the current world. The people who visited those areas were able to communicate with other people of other different cultures (Giblin 19). During the interactions between different people (both in the desert and along the coasts of Indian Ocean), there was polarization of cultures of the people who related in those areas. For example, when the Africans were interacting with Arabs, there arose a culture that is neither natively Africa nor Arab. This is because there were things that the people of both groups embraced from the other group or they had to let go some of their practices to accommodate each other. For instance, the way of African cultural organization was based on tribal linkages that put people in settlement area in small groups. Most of these groupings were disintegrated with the coming of other people who did not represent kinsmen of the people who were living in the region of African involving trade (Giblin 14-15). Trade that was a great important part of life of the people of ancient Africa in Sahara and Indian Ocean contributed to growth of towns. These people congested at particular places which urbanized to development places that were convenient for doing businesses within these areas. These areas were settled by many people and they grew to be what they are in the current Africa. Some of the towns that developed in those regions covered by Sahara and Indian Ocean were such like Lamu in the north coast of Kenya and Kilwa in southern Tanzania. These are the ones that were notable in the East African coast but as the Arabs explored and traded with Africans in the interior of Sahara desert, more towns were formed. These include such like the town of Timbuktu, which lies in the southern regions of Sahara desert. These towns represented advanced levels of trading interactions between Africans and foreigners as well as Africans and their neighbors. In addition to this, trade between these towns was made possible by various means of transport. For towns like Lamu in Kenya and Kilwa in Tanzania, which fell along the coastline of Indian Ocean, trade connection were done through ships and canoes that were powered by the wind while in Sahara region, towns were joined through camel caravan routes (Giblin 19-20). Civilization in Africa was partly achieved through various interactions in the Sahara desert and many trips to and from Africa through the Indian Ocean. Through various people visiting different places in Africa, there was exchange of knowledge and skills that influenced the development of various places in Africa. Most notable of those places in Africa is the civilization in Egypt. This was a season that was characterized by massive innovation in terms of trade, agriculture as well as development in political organization of the people. There are conditions that were changed in political organization that were based on kinship and tribal alliances. These were shaped to conform to a leadership that would accommodate more than one tribe (Giblin 4-7). Development of agriculture in the African Sahara region produced various negative impacts, though. There were diseases that were related to farming in Egypt. This is because the animals that were domesticated by ancient Africans were transmitting diseases to farmers who kept them. On the other hand, insects that inhabited the regions of the area under crop production were also a major threat to health. Some of these insects include mosquitoes that affected mostly people who were exploiting humid areas within Cameroon and the forest areas of Nigeria for production of bananas and yams. On the other hand, tsetse flies were becoming a major threat to the livestock keepers and pastoralists. They exposed people to diseases such like malaria and sleeping sicknesses (Giblin 9). In many ways, trade and other activities that prevailed in ancient Africa involving the regions of Sahara desert and the coastal regions touching the Indian Ocean was a great advantage to Africans. This is because the agricultural evolution in those areas as a result of trading interactions led to provision of adequate food for the growing ancient population. On the other hand, trading brought new commodities to the area fostering trade exchange of culture and preventing diseases that were associated with malnutrition as a result of consumption of one type of food. Sahara region of Africa and the Indian Ocean basin contributed to the development of ancient Africa. These areas involved various interactions among Africans and those people who came from beyond Africa. As a result of these, there were skills and knowledge that were exchanged and these contributed to the advancement of these areas. Languages were formed, cultures were lost and others were acquired and people moved to distant places. There were people who took long time before they went back to their homes because they had found new homes within these areas. However, this did not come without challenges to African as these same routes were the ones used by punitive slave traders and later colonizers. Work Cited Giblin, James. “Issues in African History.” Department of History, The University of Iowa, Web. 3rd Dec. 2012< http://www.zyama.com/Iowa/African%20History.htm> Read More