African Empires Vocab Review

This group of people lived in West Africa and began moving east and south. Over hundreds of years, they pushed through central and southern Africa. They colonized most of the African continent below the equator.

• Bantu

• Caravan

• Timbuktu

• Embargo

descendants of the original inhabitants of North Africa

• Berbers

• Indigenous

• Mali Empire

• Nomadic

a group of people traveling together across the deserts of Asia and North Africa. These people might have been merchants or religious pilgrims who banded together for safety and typically used camels for travel.

• caravan

• embargo

• trade

• West Africa

a law that is passed to prohibit trade with a particular nation or nations

• embargo

• caravan

• bantu

• polytheism

During the 600s and 800s, this powerful empire flourished in western Africa. Trading salt and gold made this empire so powerful.

• Ghana Empire

• Mali Empire

• Songhai Empire

• Timbuktu

means native to or coming from a particular region

• indigenous

• nomadic

• trade

• embargo

This is a mass of land in southern Africa that covers approximately 1,000 miles from north to south and 600 miles from east to west. It contains dry lakes and areas without plants as well as a salt pan that can be mined for trading.

• Kalahari Desert

• Sahara Desert

• caravan

• Mansa Musa

This was the most powerful of all the empires in West Africa from the 1200s to 1550. The first emperor Sundiata created a time of trade and peace.

• Ghana Empire

• Mali Empire

• Songhai Empire

• Monotheism

an early Emperor of Mali; he was extremely wealthy

• Mansa Musa

• Bantu

• Timbuktu

• West Africa

belief in the existence of one God

• monotheism

• polytheism

• indigenous

• caravan