Preview

Africa in the 1500s Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
694 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Africa in the 1500s Essay Example
What was West Africa like in the 1500’s?

Benin was a city that dated back to the eleventh century – and no relation to the West African nation of Benin of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Benin was a large city for its time – a walled city several kilometres wide in a forested region inland from where the Niger River emptied into the Atlantic. In the mid-1400s the ruler of Benin, Ewuare, built up his military and began expanding. Captives taken in battle he traded to the Portuguese. Benin's empire reached about 190 miles (300 kilometres) in width by the early 1500s. Then it stopped expanding, and with this it had no more captives to sell as slaves, while selling slaves to the Portuguese was being taken up by others.

The kingdom of Benin was most important in 1567 when the king sold off all his slaves to Britain for $1000, 58697,599.

Culture: African culture might have begun when people have probably been living in West Africa for tens of thousands of years. There are several good-sized rivers - the Niger, the Senegal, and the Volta - which make it easier to travel because you can use boats.

There are fish in the rivers which are good to eat. These rivers also, when they flood, spread good sand all over the land, which makes the land good for growing plants. The rivers do also breed the mosquitoes that carry yellow fever and malaria, but people living in West Africa gradually developed some privilege to these diseases.

Art:
West African Art creators spend most of their lives perfecting skills that are passed down from one generation to another.
If you are passionate about art and love it, especially African art then you are going to enjoy this site. We are going to learn about the various regions of the continent, get to know about the local people and artisans who craft these beautiful works of art and also learn about the various kinds of African art.
As a little boy growing up in Africa, I remember going

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Like religion, many elements were fused together with those of the Europeans. Nonetheless, some aspects of African culture are extremely distinctive. Dances, folk tales, music, magic, and language patterns of West African culture [7] are examples of this assumption. Music, specifically, played a major role in the preservation of African culture in the New World.…

    • 2781 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Unit 3 Assignment

    • 1517 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Africa culture is within the continent of Africa. Africa has a racial split that falls between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa; this divides the cultures into a significant number of ethnic cultures. African cultures are known to be diverse and varied and like the rest the world internal and external forces have impacted upon the African culture. African culture and the way of living are just as important to them as our culture and ways of living is important to us.…

    • 1517 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. With the exception of the king of Benin, most African rulers took part in the…

    • 1809 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Before the 19th century, Europeans had very little interest in Africa and what it had to offer. There was not much information on the land such as living conditions and types of resources available. Towards the end of the 19th century, European nations started claiming territory in Africa due to the fast paced manufacturing and the need for more materials to keep up with production.…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    African empires, kingdoms, and cities made many achievements before the arrival of the Europeans. They made advancements in things such as trade, government, education, and art. Some of Africa’s cities grew wealth and power through trade. Three empires, Ghana, Mali, and Songhai controlled the gold and salt trade. The advanced civilizations began in the city of Axum.…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In Suzanne Preston Blier’s article Enduring Myths of African Art, she articulates seven of the most common myths believed around the world surrounding African art. Of those seven myths, one that stands most true is the myth that African art is bound by place; the idea that African art in particular travels nowhere and its ideas are constrained to just the cultures they are sculpted in. Blier states, “The African art of myth is also frequently presented, incorrectly again, as an art rigidly bound by place.”1 She continues to express how most of the African art objects and styles studied are judiciously ascribed to particular regions and cultures as if they have no ability to circulate…

    • 2964 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    African Civilization DBQ

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages

    African’s were among the richest of people back in the 1000’s. Effects of trade brought cities to faster than they rise. Great civilizations from Ghana to Zimbabwe both flourished but, had their tragic end. But, it provided them with a lot of things such as gold, salt slaves etc.…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The geographical location, features, and climate lead to the development of both African areas. The difference between both the West African civilizations of Ghana, Mali and Songhai and the Swahili city states is that the Swahili city states grew around the coast of the Indian Ocean in East Africa where as Ghana, Mali and Songhai grew around West Africa through nearby tribes. The Swahili city states were a string of ports on the Eastern African coast from Kenya to Mozambique including cities such as Mogadishu, Zanzibar, Mombasa, and Sofala and were completely influenced by Islam to spread trade across the Indian Ocean. West African civilizations were located right under the Sahara which brought difficulty to trade, however they worked through it to trade to Islamic merchants of North Africa and they were also brought together through the formation of multiple African tribes. Their features were a major beneficial factor to their growth, both containing numerous amounts of gold throughout their whole land. In the Swahili city states they contained a plethora of gold mines…

    • 1358 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gelede Mask

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Drewal, Henry, John Pemberton III and Rowland Abiodun. Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. New York: The Center for African Art and Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1989.…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the comparative topics in this time period is “empire building” in Africa. The AP Jedi Masters want you to know only one of the following: (Kongo, Benin, Oyo, Dahomey, Ashanti or Songhay) – so they probably are not going to ask you to compare two African Kingdoms since they stated you only need to know one – so they could ask you to compare the process of “empire building” in Africa to that in: (Asia, Latin America or Europe) – but I am providing you with information from three African Empires – just in case – and each if from a different region in Sub-Saharan Africa – so different historical forces to consider.…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    References: McKissack, Patricia C.; McKissack, Frederick (1995). The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. p. 109. ISBN 0805042598.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Benin Bronze

    • 531 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Benin Bronze was stolen by British. At the end of the 19th century, the British Empire was in charge of nearly a quarter of the world. Other countries wanted the same. They rushed to Africa, in hope to find some land to their selves. All had been captured in Nigeria, expect from the Benin Empire. Benin had actually began as a small city, and then expanded to a huge empire which was undefeatable.…

    • 531 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    HIST 325: Colonial Africa

    • 3255 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Winter 2013 – TR 6:00-7:20pm, McKenzie 214 – CRN 23274 Version 1.00, 7 Jan 2013 Professor: Dr. L. F. Braun Office: 311 McKenzie Hall Telephone: x6-4838 on-campus. Email: lfbraun@uoregon.edu Office hours: T 2:00-4:00pm & by appt. Overview and Objectives Africa is central to human history. It is the continent where our species arose, where some of the greatest ancient civilizations throve, and where dynamic, complex, and innovative cultures confronted a variety of social, political, and environmental challenges. Many African states and societies were materially wealthier than their European counterparts until the 1700s, and Africa has always been connected— however tenuously at times—to the wider world. Yet in the popular, Eurocentric historical imagination in the U.S. and Europe, there is sparse knowledge of Africa’s history, and it was rarely even considered a subject for historical study until the 1950s. For the period before European political dominion in Africa (c.1880-1960), this lack is even more pronounced. In this course we will explore the history of Africa between the 800s and the late 1800s, while at the same time discovering the…

    • 3255 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Body Art and Ornamentation

    • 1578 Words
    • 7 Pages

    References: Clarke, C. (2006). The art of africa: A response for educators. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved from Ebscohost database…

    • 1578 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dallas Art Museum

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Kleiner, Fred S., Mamiya, Christin J. Gardner 's Art Through the Ages: Non-Western Perspectives. Boston, Ma: Cengage Learning, 2009.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays