Many well known civilizations of Ancient Africa were Carthage, the Kingdom of Ghana, and the Mali Empire. Africa relied on trade for money. They traded rare jewels like diamonds, sapphires, and blue garnets. They traded with Portugal for objects that were hard to come across in Africa like luxurious animal skins, ivory, and ebony. Their economy had many incidents where it began to fail due to heavy taxes on gold and salt. In times of low income they'd rely on cash crops for income. When many of the coastal empire's began to become richer the economy would then settle down. The most common jobs in these civilizations were farmers, warriors, traders, artisans, and slaves. The government of each civilization was ruled by emperors who were a single
