North African people largely responsible for the development of trade across the Sahara.
Once the masters of independent North African kingdoms like Numidia and Mauritania, Berber societies rivaled the empires of Carthage and Rome in antiquity. The Berbers inhabited the North African region known as the Maghreb, which stretches from modern Libya to Morocco. Berber peoples practiced settled farming along the coastal regions of the Maghreb and pastoralism in the mountainous interior. After the Romans conquered the Berber kingdoms of Numidia and Mauritania, some Berbers adopted the camel as a mode of transport and began migrating south across the Sahara Desert, finally settling along the northern fringes of the savannah region in the third and fourth centuries. This allowed Berber traders to engage Sudanese peoples in a lucrative trade across the Sahara, thus beginning the trans-Saharan trade. Along with this trade, the Berbers settled new cities like Gao, Timbuktu, and Djenne near Saharan oases. Control of these oases cities allowed the Berbers to dominate the trans-Saharan trade routes and act as intermediaries between sub-Saharan African and the Mediterranean Sea traders. The Berbers traded salt, an important and valuable item in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as European metals, swords, and Asian silks for goods like ivory, gold, and kola nuts.
In the seventh century, Arab Muslims came to the Maghreb homeland of the Berbers and after fierce fighting converted many Berber traders. Berber Muslims then spread Islam across the Sahara into the kingdoms of sub-Saharan West Africa from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. As this process occurred, former trading cities established by Berber traders became Islamic centers of learning as well, and often the capital cities of kingdoms like Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. The desire to trade with the Berbers led the leaders of some of these kingdoms to convert to Islam to have greater influence with traders. As these sub-Saharan kingdoms grew powerful and tightened their grip on the trans-Saharan trade, some Berbers, particularly the Almoravids, carried out dual-purpose invasions to spread Islam and retake control of Saharan trade routes. The Almoravid invasion of ancient Ghana established a Berber empire stretching from the boundaries of Ghana to North Africa by 1070. The formation of this new empire weakened Ghana as it diverted trade east of the kingdom, thereby removing much wealth. The loss of wealth Ghana experienced weakened it and ultimately contributed to its fall. The trade that Berber traders dominated declined slowly after Europeans arrived in the coastal waters of West Africa in the fifteenth century. Once Europeans began direct trade with West African peoples, trade routes and goods shifted toward the coast, which reduced the importance of the trans-Saharan trade across the desert.
Eugene S. Vansickle
See also: Atlantic Trade; Ghana; Salt; Saharan and Trans-Saharan Trade; Slavery.
Ballard, Reuben G. “The Berbers of the Maghreb and Ancient Carthage.” In Africa and Africans in Antiquity, ed. Edwin M. Yamauchi. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001.
Davidson, Basil. A History of West Africa, 1000–1800. Essex, UK: Longman, 1977.