1. West Africa
(before the 16th century)
Fifth Grade Social Studies

2. Before we learn about the
history of this region, it helps
to understand the geography of
the African continent . . .

3. How can the geography of
Africa be described?
• In the north, the Sahara Desert, an area of
very little rainfall, stretches across about
1/3 of the continent. It is the world’s
largest desert, and is, for the most part,
harsh, bleak wasteland.
Sahara Desert

4. • Below the Sahara is the savanna land. It is
an area of tall grass, fertile soil, and long
rainy seasons.
Savanna

5. • South of the savanna, near the equator,
are the rainforests. Here, the trees and
grasses are so tall and thick that in many
places the sun cannot penetrate.
Rainforest

6. • To watch a video clip about the geography
of Africa, click here
http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=cd18a076-194d-4c04
8758-a5ee358dac11&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=HUB
(Click for video segment)
3 min 37 sec

7. Where is West Africa?
• West Africa is the
region of western Africa
that includes the
countries of Benin,
Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, Côte
d'Ivoire, The Gambia,
Ghana, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Liberia,
Mali, Niger, Nigeria,
Senegal, Sierra Leone
and Togo.
• It is on what is known
as the “Bulge of Africa.”

8. Why study West Africa ?
• Before the 16th century, highly complex societies
existed there, but this has been ignored or
skimmed over in many accounts of world history.
• For too long, there has been a one-sided,
distorted view of the historic contributions of
Africa. In the United States, approximately one
tenth of the population is made up of people of
African descent. Shouldn’t everyone be able to
look back proudly to their cultural heritage?

9. What happened between the
16th and 19th Centuries?
• This is the time in which the Age of Exploration
and the colonization of the New World (in North
America) was taking place. There came a growing
demand for cheap labor to work the plantations of
the New World.
• In exchange for guns and other European goods,
West Africans sold slaves, usually either captured
in war or accepted as tribute from conquered
peoples.
• The slave trade displaced millions of Africans from
their native lands. Uprooted from their societies,
the Africans brought with them their family values,
beliefs, traditions, and religious practices.

10. What is a century anyway?
A century is 100 years.
Then why are the 1500’s
called the 16th century?
The 1st century was year 1 to year 100.
The 2nd century was year 101 to year 200.
The 3rd century was year 201 to year 300.
Keep going until you get to the 16th century . . .
Now do you see why?

11. We will learn about the
following 4 topics in our study
of Western African Life before
the 16th century:
• Family Structures
• Growth of States and Towns
• Economic Structures
• Trade

12. Family Structures
• Early African people lived in large family groups.
Sometimes 2 or 3 generations might live
together in a group of houses. To a youngster,
all adult men were “fathers” and all adult women
were “mothers,” while all the children were
“sisters” and “brothers.”
• They tended to count wealth not only in terms of
goods and gold, but also in the number of
people living together as a family.
• Parents, children and grandparents formed
clans with other families. Larger clans became
tribes.

13. Family Structures
• These clans and tribes were mainly groups of
farmers who lived in villages scattered
throughout the savannas. They worked in fields
near their villages, growing enough food for their
own needs and a little left over for trade with
other villages.
• Sometimes the tribe was nomadic and traveled
with their animals to the best places to graze
and drink. Other tribes settled villages, towns
and sometimes cities. Between these towns,
trade routes developed. Some routes were over
land; others were traveled by river or sea.

14. Growth of States and Towns
• Scattered among the villages were larger
towns and cities, often located along
important river and trade routes.
• Some of the towns had populations
numbering in the thousands.
• These people had originally come from
the villages, seeking the excitement of
urban living and greater opportunities for
earning a living.

15. Economic Structures
• The towns and the cities depended on the villages for
food. The people of the towns concentrated instead on
crafts, such as weaving cloth, making jewelry, or
producing household tools or weapons.
• The biggest business was trade. Many of the larger cities
became great marketplaces.
• In addition to villagers and townspeople, there were
small groups of fishermen and boatmen, who settled
along the rivers, exchanging fish and transportation
services for their food and clothes.
• Along with these river people were other small groups
who depended on hunting small game for their living.

16. Trade
• The one-humped dromedary camel, the “ship of the
desert,” having the ability to go long periods without food
or water, were great for desert travel. These types of
camels store fat in their hump, and water in their
stomach. As the use of camels for transporting people
and goods became common, caravan routes were
established, developing into important channels of trade.

17. What did they trade?
• They traded crops, such as salt, spices, rice, wheat,
barley, millet, olives, yams, and sorghum.
Sorghum
is boiled
and eaten
like rice or
made into
flour for
porridge
or bread.
Yams are native to Africa.
• Goats, fish, cattle, and fowl were some of the livestock
bought and sold.
• People also traded copper, bronze, iron and gold. The
metals were useful for making tools, coins, decorations,
and weapons.

18. But by far the two most prosperous
goods traded were gold and salt.
Silk, Ceramics, Beads,
Islam from Europe and
Salt Asia
Gold, Ivory, Wood, Slaves
Coming into
West Africa
Coming from West Africa

19. Do the West Africans of today
celebrate their cultural
history?
http://streaming.discoveryeducat
ion.com/videos/images/playerne
w/fb3e7fe9-7cdd-4aa2-b304-
(Click for video segment)
2 min 50 sec