TRADING TOWNS OF THE EAST AFRICAN COAST

Historians in the past have sometimes tended to overemphasize the Arab input to the early growth
of east African coastal trade. This view has placed all the initiative in the hands of the Muslim
Arab immigrants. Early research focused upon the Arab contribution to the language and culture
of the Kiswahili speaking peoples. Arabs were portrayed as the prime movers in the
developments. It was they who drew coastal Africans into their own trading culture, thereby
creating the Afro-Arab combination that founded the Swahili trading towns. Recent research has
shown that past emphasis upon Arab input has been misleading. But what previously tended to be
overlooked was the extent of the indigenous African input to the early development of coastal
trade and the spread of Swahili culture and society.
Overseas trade was more important to the political power of the rulers of the Swahili coast towns.
The sultans charged import and export dues of up to 50 per cent and more on all goods passing
through the town. If the merchants were still wealthy despite the heavy taxes than the leaders
were definitely in good standing with their wealth.

Slavery

The Slave trade did not start with the Atlantic slave trade, slave labour was used in the midSaharan salt mines from the ancient times, but the scale of the slave trade first increased with the
expansion of trans-Saharan trade that coincided with the Muslim penetration of North Africa and
the growth in the empire of Ghana.
Islamic did not allow the enslavement of fellow Muslims, so North African merchant sought their
slave from non-Muslims society south of the Sahara.
Slavery in the Muslim world was not a plantation slavery, such as the slavery in the Americas.
Young Males were usually incorporated into armies and through this, and their conversion to
Islam, they became an integral part of Muslim North Africa: some formal slaves rose to high
office. This means that enslavement in the Muslim world was temporary, right after they convert
to Islam they dont become slaves anymore and they treated them like civilians.
Female slaves, for whom there was a high demand since Arab men were horny as FUCK because
they loved the booty, they become household maid or concubines.
War-captives became slaves
At first Portuguese traded copper, brass and European cloth in exchange for gold and ivory. Also
the Portuguese were buying slaves from the kingdom of Benin near the Niger Delta and sold
them to the Akan ppl to be used on to run the gold mines of the Akan forest region. At First
Portuguese merchant were buying slaves from African merchants and selling them to African
merchants, so the trade was only in Africa. This shows at first that the Portuguese only
concentrated on the gold rather than the salve trade.
The involvement of the Portuguese in the trade caused the half the produce gold mines to moved
southwards, away from the Songhay and the trans-Saharan trade, and toward the European
trading forts along the coast. Which further weakened the power of Songhay Empire
The European colonisers needed African slaves is because the local Amerindian population
decreased so fast that there barely any Amerindian left to work in the mines, 90% of the
Amerindian pollution in the Caribbean has been wiped out of because of old world disease or
harsh treatment. At first Europeans tried on using criminals and outcast to work in the mine in the

new worlds. The problem with this is that the number of the criminals transported are limited and
those who were sent did not survive long because of tropical disease.
Because neither the Americans nor Europeans were able to survive the harsh treatment of the
labour and the diseases, the European colonisers turned to Africans for their slave labour.
Africans were used for labour since they developed a certain level of immunity to some tropical
diseases.
European slave traders were not active in the business of capturing their victims. They did not
have the military power to go on their own extensive raiding expeditions. Also why go on
expensive raiding expeditions when captives could be bought more cheaply and with less risk at
the coast. When they did enter the interior they suffered military defeat or were weakened by
disease. In general it was African rulers who provided the captives and Afro-European slave
dealers who conveyed them to the coast for sale.. The main source of people for sale into slavery
was those captured in warfare. The prime motive of these wars was the formation and expansion
of states rather than simply a free-for-all in which the losers ended in slavery. Basically powerful
African rulers provided captives when it suited them, and some of them became very rich in the
process, but they rarely sold people from their own society, except unwanted criminals and
outcasts. These rulers were also in search to gain the offering of high prices for captives, and
goods such as guns.

West Africa States

The reason the Songhay Empire declined is because a series of weak succession of short reigns
and dynastic disputes which erupted in civil war. Also At the same time the general population
and agricultural basis of the economy were weakened by drought and disease. There was a
loosening of Songhays control over long distance trading networks. In the east the growth of
Hausa states, Borno and the Tuareg Sultante of Air, was drawing Trans-Saharan trade away from
Songhay and the western routes. And from the south the supply of gold declined as the chiefdoms
of the Akan forest diverted some of their trade to the newly arrived European traders on the coast.

Moroccan invasions: The main reason for the Moroccan invasion of Songhay was to seize
control of and revive the trans-Saharan trade in gold. Sultan Ahmed al-Mansur sent small but
very experienced army. Their arrival on the banks of the Niger took the people and rulers of
Songhay by surprise and the huge Songhay army were thrown into confusion by the Moroccans
disciplined use of firearms. After their easy victory of Tondibi, Timbuktu and Jene they failed in
their conquest of the region as a whole. The Songhay army fled and regrouped, they had quickly
learned the futility of an open charge against guns. In the years that followed Askiya conducted
protracted guerrilla resistance which wore down the resources and resolve of the alien intruders.
At the same time, Moroccan presence in the countryside was constantly threated by raids from
Fulani and Tuareg nomads. Apart from the early years of looting and enforced payment of
taxation the invasion brought little long-term financial reward for the Sultan of Morocco. In fact
persistent Songhay resistance ensured that the cost of keeping an active army became a serious
drain on Moroccan resources. The Moroccans were also not receiving enough West African gold
needed to pay the Europeans for their goods and guns resulting in a lack of constant supply of
expensive equipment.