Both the Ghana and Mali empires had important gold mines.. Monarchs of the empire of Mali claimed direct control over gold mines to make sure the profits went to the empire and especiall
Trang 1tions or to pay tribute Much of the rise and fall in economic
success of the two empires depended on neighboring peoples
paying tribute The tribute was usually paid in goods and
slaves
Both the Ghana and Mali empires had important gold
mines The empire of Ghana was never able to exert direct
control over its mines, which were established deep in nearby
forests in locations that remained carefully guarded secrets
Monarchs of the empire of Mali claimed direct control over
gold mines to make sure the profits went to the empire and
especially to the monarch But even some Mali mines escaped
the control of the government In each case the government
became rich in the gold trade by controlling the
opportuni-ties for gold to be traded, making sure the miners traded only
with representatives of the empire Since ancient times the
people who worked those mines had taken pains to keep the
locations of their mines secret, and even during the medieval
era some successfully kept them secret This did not mean
that they escaped government oversight altogether, because
to trade their gold they had to go to markets that were
regu-lated by the government Under the law of Ghana all gold had
to be traded to the monarch, and miners had no choice but to
exchange their gold for goods whose values were regulated by
the government
The empire of Ghana taxed the production of goods
within its borders, taking a share of whatever was produced,
and it taxed trade goods both entering and leaving the
coun-try With the wealth generated by trading gold with North
Africa, the empires of Ghana and Mali could maintain large,
well-equipped armies The empires used their armies to
en-sure that their neighbors paid tribute and to enslave people
captured from the interior, fostering a slave trade that
gener-ated much wealth for the empires
trAding economieS of
ethiopiA And eASt AfricA
Ethiopia’s medieval economy was complicated by its
relation-ship to the Muslims, who gradually took control of much of
the territory surrounding Ethiopia From ancient times the
kingdom of Axum near the coast had traded extensively with
the Near East and the rest of Asia, and it shared close
rela-tions with the Arabs Early in the medieval era pressure from
Muslim armies forced the Axumite kingdom to collapse, and
the center of government moved west from Axum into the
Ethiopian highlands Although Ethiopia built magnificent
structures, most notably Christian churches, it did not have
a seat of government as most empires did Instead, the
mon-archs of Ethiopia tended to move about, living in large tents
This was not a unique practice For example, before the
Nor-man invasion of 1066, English kings tended to travel from
place to place in their country because no one place could feed their entire court for more than a short time This may have been one of the reasons the Ethiopian monarchs were nomadic; other possible reasons include making sure their presence and leadership were evident and acknowledged in their far-flung lands and making it hard for invaders to locate them in times of war
With trade to the east and south often disrupted by Is-lamic incursions, Ethiopia developed strong relationships to the north and west To the north was Egypt Beginning with the Islamic takeover of Egypt in the 600s, Ethiopia paid a trib-ute of 365 slaves each year to Egypt, a practice that continued into the 1300s, despite occasional changes of regime in Egypt
In exchange for this tribute, Ethiopians on pilgrimages to Je-rusalem were given safe passage through Egypt and access
to Egyptian markets For most of the medieval era Ethiopia was a powerful empire that exacted tributes from its other neighbors The rulers of Eritrea paid tribute in silk and cot-ton from China and India, armor and weapons from the Near East, gold, and Arabian horses Provinces outside the Ethio-pian highlands paid tributes with shares of their harvests as well as with cattle, mules, ivory, gold, honey, and wax In 1332 Ethiopia conquered Dawaro, Bali, and Sharka, small states to the south that were then forced to pay tribute
The internal economy of Ethiopia resembled that of feu-dal Europe during the Middle Ages Fiefs were held by chiefs, knights, monasteries, and even the monarch, and accord-ing to accounts from outsiders, the peasants were ill treated Peasants were required to pay one-third of their harvests to their feudal masters In northern Ethiopia trade with for-eigners was spurred by a need to acquire portable goods that could be paid as taxes to the government The monarch took the entire court when traveling around Ethiopia, including bureaucrats, servants, and soldiers Moving the monarch ev-ery three months or so from one place to another required between 50,000 and 100,000 donkeys and thousands of bear-ers The monarch and nobles had between 5,000 and 6,000 tents On a smaller scale provincial governors and local chiefs replicated this process of moving their governments
During the medieval era several powerful city-states arose along the east coast of Africa, from south of Ethiopia through modern-day Mozambique Among these city-states were, from north to south, Warsheikh, Mogadishu, Bur Gao, Ungwana, Malindi, Gedi, Mombasa, Mtambe Mkuu (on Pemba Island), Unguija Ukuu (on Zanzibar Island), Mkan-dini, Dar es Salaam, Kivinja, Kilwa, Murrapania, Sofala, and Chibuene These city-states existed entirely for trade, and they became—like the great trading cities of medieval Italy—trad-ing empires with great fleets and domination over the territo-ries around them At least two of these city-states, Kilwa and
economy: Africa 311