Ancient Ghana Trading Research Paper

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Ashyle Moore World Civilization to 1500 William Lindsay 03 May 2017 Ancient Ghana trading across the world “The Ghana Republic was named Wagadugu, the medieval Ghana Empire in west Africa.” (Pike). Ghana began trading items in the fifth century, and that played an important role in African history. How does trading from Ghana benefit people across the world? Trading is a type of exchange that is wide ranged. The items that were traded included gold, weapons, textiles, horses, salt, and slaves. Merchants were spread across the kingdom and trade routes were accessible for the trades. “The rise of the Soninke empire of Ghana is related to the beginnings of the trans-Saharan gold trade in the fifth century.” (Pike). Slavery trade routes …show more content…

The Soninke people kept the goldfields a secret, because it was there main source of trade. “Gold was traded for salt, copper, and iron, because it was needed.” (Pike). Taxes were applied to the items and more gold was exchanged for it. The Soninke chief founded the city of Kumbi Saleh which is a name for a royal family. “The chief was known as Kaya Maghan or “King of the Gold.” (Pike). The leaders of the kingdom wanted to make the trade routes larger so they began making them bigger to get more trades. Around the eighth and ninth century gold was bought from the Berbers and more caravans were financed. (Mayer). Being the land of gold was the heart of Ghana. There were people that always wanted to get their hands on the gold to make things better for their …show more content…

The people were merchants and they were very successful with their trades. One of the places that they traded with was Morocco. In the heartland of the region a gold area was located. The merchants made exchanges and when it got to Morocco it was then transported all over the world. The nomadic Berbers did most of the trading across the desert. (Duiker). The Muslim merchants played an important role in part of the trade. Muslim merchants would purchase some of the goods and would use iron or copper coins as a mean of trade. All merchants did not trade the same way and some of them became very wealthy. The wealthy merchants lived in the high- class areas of Ghana in a city called Saleh. Not only did merchants live there so did the king. Ghana was like other monarchial and had a political system. In the monarchial system, it included the king and district chiefs. The system worked well for them and everyone knew their

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