North African and Trans-Saharan Trade

AFRICA IN ANCIENT TIMES HIST 1301 | History North African and Trans-Saharan Trade From at least the ninth century BCE, products have been transported between oasis and bigger cities in North and West Africa, a practice known as trans-Saharan trade. This system developed over time from the very limited commerce in iron items and agricultural products that was concentrated around the Phoenician city of Carthage. It developed into a system of trade that covered the whole continent, travelling as far east as Somalia in the Horn of Africa and as far south as Niger between what is now Senegal in West Africa and Egypt in the east. Commodities traded included copper, salt, ivory, enslaved people, textiles, and gold. During its peak, trans-Saharan trade had an impact on banking and trade throughout much of North Africa, as well as the economy of Europe and the Near East. The North and West African nomadic peoples made this trading system viable. North African Phoenician settlements were fed by African farmers in the ninth century BCE. The Phoenicians taught these peoples new technologies like ironworking in return. The two clans intermarried during centuries of contact and assimilated into North African civilization. Phoenician traders were dependent on the herders of the Atlas Mountains (in modern-day Morocco) and the northern Sahara to the south starting in the seventh century BCE. Native Americans had long kept in touch across the Sahara, but it was often shaky since travelling over the desert carries hazards. These threats included attacks on trade caravans and slave raids by the Libyan Garamantes desert tribe. Small villages of seminomadic peoples along a thin line of oases, forming a pointto-point trading system, helped allow interaction in the extremities of the desert. As a result, early trade in the Sahara involved moving products from oasis to oasis rather than lugging them over the enormous desert. Salt was a major product traded in this early phase of commerce; it was transported to the south and used as a kind of money. In the farming settlements south of the Sahara, where salt is rare, it was greatly valued. This is because salt is necessary for people to maintain healthy body functioning and because they need to routinely eat salt to replenish what they lose via perspiration and sweat. The salt was accessible to the Saharan traders, who used their knowledge of its location to exchange it for other items they could get. Highly valuable commercial items, including gold and copper, were only gradually imported. These goods were then transported from tropical West Africa over the desert to the furthest shore of North Africa. In the days of Carthaginian rule over Tunisia, pack animals like donkeys, horses, and mules were used to transport goods between the autonomous African kingdoms in the coastal and mountainous areas to the west of the Phoenician imperial capital. By the second century BCE, as Carthage began to wane and Rome began to rise, these kingdoms—known to the Romans as Mauretania and Numidia—had expanded their dominion over a large portion of North Africa. Roman intervention in the internal political affairs of the Numidian state gradually soured ties between the Romans and the North African kingdoms, and ultimately Rome captured both Numidia and Mauretania. For a while, the Romans and the North African kingdoms enjoyed a comparatively peaceful and successful relationship. In classic Roman form, the newly acquired areas saw the establishment of cities and vast estates. However, their authority outside of these enclaves was limited. Beyond them, the local population continued to dominate the area in terms of both language and culture. However, Rome had a strategic interest in securing these new provinces' southernmost borders. In order to accomplish this successfully, a boundary has to be established and then patrolled. Since horses could not accomplish this, the Romans turned to the one-humped dromedary camel. Due to their biological makeup that allowed them to withstand harsh desert conditions, camels were the best option for securing Rome's new southern boundary. The trans-Saharan commerce was revolutionised by the introduction of the dromedary camel, which originated in Arabia and spread slowly throughout the area, reaching North Africa. The earliest known camels in North Africa may have arrived in Egypt in the ninth century BCE, but it wasn't until the third and fourth centuries CE—possibly aided by Roman usage of the animal—that camel use extended to the African nomadic peoples of the northern Sahara. It had developed into a significant mode of transportation in the area by the fifth century. Compared to other pack animals, camels have a lot of benefits. It could go fifteen to eighteen miles a day on average, carrying up to three hundred pounds of cargo, and it could keep a steady pace over far longer distances than oxen. The camel could also travel for up to 10 days without stopping for new water because to its ability to store fat and water, which is more than twice as long as and as far as nearly any other pack animal. In addition, the camel's unusually spread feet made it easier for it to move about in the soft, sandy Saharan terrain. The camel opened up whole new paths through the desert by enabling nomads to go to farther-flung oasis than they had previously been able to. Travelling in the desert remained dangerous and unstable, but it did become more dependable. It was now feasible for travellers in the desert to think of sending regular, large-scale commercial caravans across the Sahara. That being said, the majority of the region's nomadic peoples, including the Tuareg in the middle and southern Sahara and the Sanhaja in the west, continued to control desert transportation. These communities continued to be mostly nomadic pastoralists, gathering date palms and grazing their flocks and herds in oasis, despite the fact that trans-Saharan commerce was expanding at the time. They frequently cared for goats and sheep, but they also frequently owned cattle, camels, and even horses. All of these animals needed to graze, and the nomads were compelled to locate alternative grazing grounds when they were unable to do so at oasis due to either distance or weather. This was especially true during the warmest and driest seasons, when the nomads moved their herds and flocks to the southern Sahel or northern Maghreb, which offered better grazing conditions. They had to interact with the more established agricultural communities in these regions, which inevitably led to violence as they fought for scarce resources in an unfriendly environment. The pastoralists who lived on the move ruled the Sahara outside of these towns. However, there were other populations in the desert, including little tribes like the Haratin, who lived in the oasis. In exchange for sustenance, they excavated salt and collected dates, but the nomads who ruled the oasis frequently held them in a submissive role. The Mediterranean region had easier access to sub-Saharan African goods as camels revolutionised transportation over the desert. Large animals were driven to extinction in North Africa, the demand for items like ostrich plumes and ivory surged, and trade in gold from West Africa flourished. Several new communities, including Sijilmasa, Ghat, Gao, Awdaghust, and Kano, arose to facilitate the transportation of products north and south of the Sahara as cross-desert travel increased. Goods were traded and camel caravans were restocked at these locations so they could continue travelling across the desert. The peoples of established cultures to the north and south of the Sahara were primarily responsible for the demand for and exchange of products, even if nomads continued to control the trade in goods in the desert.