Trans-Saharan Trade
Senior 1 · History and Citizenship
Trans-Saharan Trade
Lesson 1 of 5
25 min
On the island of Majorca, off the coast of Spain, a mapmaker named Cresques Abraham painted a map of the world as Europeans knew it in the 1370s. Source A is its West African section. No European had yet crossed the Sahara, so everything drawn here came from what North African merchants told the traders of Majorca.
Study Source A for two minutes. Then answer in your notebook:
The mapmaker had never seen Africa, yet he knew three things that traders talked about: veiled people on camels crossed the desert; south of it ruled a king rich in gold; and towns along the way received the travellers. Those are the three ingredients of the trade you study in this unit.
Definition
Trans-Saharan trade: the long-distance trade carried across the Sahara Desert between North Africa and West Africa, at its height from about the 8th century to the late 16th century CE. Trans is Latin for "across". Example: gold carried north from the Niger valley, and salt carried south from Taghaza.
Definition
Caravan: a group of traders travelling together with their pack animals for safety, sharing guides, water and food. Example: the caravan of Sijilmasa merchants that the traveller Ibn Battuta joined in February 1352.
Definition
Oasis: (plural oases) a place in a desert where underground water comes near the surface, so that wells can be dug, date palms and crops can grow, and people can live. Example: the Tafilalt oasis, where the town of Sijilmasa grew up.
Definition
Sahel: the belt of dry grassland along the southern edge of the Sahara, stretching from Senegal to Sudan. The name comes from the Arabic sahil, "shore": to desert travellers it was the shore at the end of a sea of sand. Example: Walata, Timbuktu and Gao all lie in the Sahel.
The Sahara is the largest hot desert on Earth. Its area is about 9.2 million km², roughly 350 times the area of Rwanda. Figure 1 shows the main routes that crossed it. Read the map in this order: find the desert (sandy colour), then the goods (gold fields in the south, salt mines in the middle), then the routes that joined them.
Worked example: how fast did a caravan travel?
Question: The traveller Ibn Battuta left Sijilmasa on 18 February 1352. He reached the salt town of Taghaza after 25 days, and Walata exactly two months after leaving Sijilmasa. Use the distances measured on Figure 1 to estimate the caravan's speed.
People crossed the Sahara in small numbers long before 700 CE. The trade became large and regular only when several things came together. Historians list these factors, or causes, for its rise and development.
| Factor | How it helped the trade |
|---|---|
| The camel | Camels became common in North Africa from about the 3rd century CE. A camel carries heavy loads over sand and, in 30 to 40 °C heat, needs water only every 10 to 15 days. Horses and donkeys could not cross the open desert. |
| Berber and Tuareg guides | Desert peoples knew the wells, the stars and the shifting dunes. They guided and protected caravans, hired out camels, and controlled the salt mines. |
| Islam | After the Arab conquest of North Africa in the 7th century, Muslim merchants shared one faith, one written language (Arabic) and the same laws on contracts and credit. A trader could trust a written promise to pay from a Muslim partner across the desert. |
| Demand for gold | North Africa and Europe needed gold to make coins but had little of their own. West Africa had rich gold fields at Bambuk, Bure and, later, in the Akan forest. |
| Demand for salt | People in the hot savanna and forest lose salt through sweat and need it to preserve food, but the region had few salt sources. The desert had whole mines of rock salt. |
| Oasis towns | Oases such as Sijilmasa, Ghadames and Awjila supplied water, dates, fresh camels and markets, breaking a terrible crossing into shorter stages. |
| Strong states | The kings of Ghana, and later Mali and Songhai, kept order, protected traders and taxed the trade, so both sides could profit. |
| High profits | Goods were worth far more at the end of the journey than at the start, as you will calculate in lesson 2. The profit paid for the danger. |
Definition
Berbers: the original peoples of North Africa, who call themselves Imazighen (singular Amazigh). Many lived as herders and traders in and around the desert. Example: the Massufa, a Berber group whose men guided caravans and who controlled the salt mines of Taghaza in the 1350s.
Definition
Tuareg: a Berber people of the central Sahara and the Sahel, famous as camel herders, caravan guides and traders. Tuareg men traditionally cover the face with a veil, the tagelmust. Example: the veiled rider in Source A represents desert peoples like the Tuareg.
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368 or 1369), a scholar from Tangier in Morocco, crossed the western route in 1352. He was amazed that anyone could find the way at all:
"For there is no visible road or track in these parts—nothing but sand blown hither and thither by the wind. You see hills of sand in one place, and afterwards you will see them moved to quite another place. The guide there is one who has made the journey frequently in both directions, and who is gifted with a quick intelligence."
Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354, translated by H. A. R. Gibb (London, 1929), p. 319. Public domain.
Their guide, Ibn Battuta noted, was blind in one eye, yet knew the road better than anyone. The caravan also paid a hundred gold mithqals (a unit of gold weight, about 4.25 g) to a Massufa man, the takshif, who rode ahead alone to Walata so that people there could come out to meet them with water. The Berber and Tuareg peoples were not just helpers of the trade: without their knowledge it could not have happened.
Important
Sijilmasa grew up in the 750s in the Tafilalt oasis in what is now south-eastern Morocco. It was founded by Berbers, and its canals from the River Ziz watered huge groves of date palms. For caravans heading south, it was the last great market before the desert, just as a seaport is the last stop before the ocean.
Tip
Memory hook: CAMELS gives the factors for the rise of the trade: Camels; Arabs and Islam; Minerals in demand (gold north, salt south); Empires that kept order (Ghana, Mali, Songhai); Local guides (Berbers and Tuareg); Stopping places (oasis towns).
Heimler's History: "The Trans-Saharan Trade Network, Explained". A short revision video made for older students. Watch for the new technologies and the role of Islam that the presenter names, and compare his map with Figure 1.
Think, pair, share: Which factor in the table do you think mattered most? Imagine the trade without it. Could the other factors have made up for it? Then compare with your partner: did you choose the same factor for the same reason?
Practice
Sources and credits
The rest of this lesson, its diagrams, tables, worked examples and practice items, and the unit exercises were written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
