Major Ghana Societies

Major Societies The major societies and states of sub-Saharan Africa started with Ghana in the 4th or 5th century. Ghana was a state of west Africa whose kings controlled trade of gold by tax so they could gain money to build a army and strong society. This state was later Mali, after a group of new individuals took it over. These new individuals kept the strong practices of Ghana until it was invaded and became Songhay. Songhay was developed in the 15th century and traded salt, textiles, and metal for gold and slaves. Their ruler, Sunni Ali, grew the cities of Jenne and Timbuktu into strong trading center. He also created a strong military which included a navy to patrol the Niger River. Most of the emperors of Songhay practiced Muslim …show more content…
The portuguese then started to purchase slaves instead of catching them on their own since they were faced with dangerous resistance from the native Africans. European ships took voyages of three legs called the triangular trade. First horse and European good were loaded onto the ships for exchanging for slaves. Then the slaves were carried to the Caribbean and to the Americas. It was here that the slaves were sold for cash, sugar, or molasses. Finally the ship went back to Europe with its profits. During the voyage the slaves were forced onto dirty, unsanitary,crowded, and small ship spaces where the mortality rate was around 50%. Many times they were laid on shelves and couldn’t stand up during the time at sea. Individuals tried to starve themselves so they would have to continue the voyage but slave traders forced them to eat so they made a …show more content…
Almost all plantations produced cash crops like sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, cotton, or coffee. Plantations usually relied mostly on slave labor to do work including gardens for the local communities. In the Caribbean and South African plantations life was extremely difficult and dangerous. The plantations here were usually unable to provide for themselves in terms of nutrition and sanitation, which caused outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever to be extremely detrimental. There was also a very low reproduction rate since most of the slaves were male on the plantations. This lead to slave owners having to purchase new slaves to keep populations up. North American plantations had a slightly less brutal ways of life even though only 5% of African slaves ended up there. There was a greater number of women slaves in these plantations so families were encouraged. This also meant that slave owners didn’t have to continue to purchase new slaves from