Can you please tell me about Africa in the year, 1400?

*cultural practices (including women's lives/roles/rights)



*social relationships, networks, and structures (how people interacted with one another)



*education



*family life



*class structure (poor, rich, nobles, slaves, etc...)



AND/OR Can you please give me some websites to visit about all these subjects that have to do with Africa in the year, 1400? Thank you! :)Can you please tell me about Africa in the year, 1400?
G'day Heiress,



Thank you for your question.



With the exception of North Africa, little is known about Africa at approximately 1400. There are certainly few written sources. If I were you, I would start looking through books for the information. There probably aren't many websites on the topic.



In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries the Arabs in Africa were numerically weak, holding the countries they had conquered only by military superiority; but in the 11th century there was a great Arab immigration, resulting in a large absorption of Berber culture. Even before this the Berbers had very generally adopted the speech and religion of their conquerors. Arab influence and the Islamic religion thus became indelibly stamped on northern Africa. Together they spread southward across the Sahara. They also became firmly established along the eastern seaboard, where Arabs, Persians and Indians planted flourishing colonies, such as Mombasa, Malindi and Sofala, playing a role, maritime and commercial, analogous to that filled in earlier centuries by the Carthaginians on the northern seaboard. Until the 14th century, Europe and the Arabs of North Africa were both ignorant of these eastern cities and states.



The first Arab invaders had recognized the authority of the caliphs of Baghdad, and the Aghlabite dynasty鈥攆ounded by Aghlab, one of Haroun al-Raschid's generals, at the close of the 8th century鈥攔uled as vassals of the caliphate. However, early in the 10th century the Fatimid dynasty established itself in Egypt, where Cairo had been founded AD 968, and from there ruled as far west as the Atlantic. Later still arose other dynasties such as the Almoravides and Almohades. Eventually the Turks, who had conquered Constantinople in 1453, and had seized Egypt in 1517, established the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli (between 1519 and 1551), Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan dynasty, which had its beginnings at the end of the 13th century.



Under the earlier dynasties Arabian or Moorish culture had attained a high degree of excellence, while the spirit of adventure and the proselytizing zeal of the followers of Islam led to a considerable extension of the knowledge of the continent. This was rendered more easy by their use of the camel (first introduced into Africa by the Persian conquerors of Egypt), which enabled the Arabs to traverse the desert. In this way Senegambia and the middle Niger regions fell under the influence of the Arabs and Berbers.



Islam also spread through the interior of West Africa, as the religion of the mansas of the Mali Empire (c. 1235-1400) and many rulers of the Songhai Empire (c. 1460-1591). Following the fabled 1324 hajj of Kankan Musa I, Timbuktu became renowned as a center of Islamic scholarship as sub-Saharan Africa's first university. That city had been reached in 1352 by the great Arab traveller Ibn Battuta, whose journey to Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa) provided the first accurate knowledge of those flourishing Muslim cities on the east African seaboards.



Except along this seaboard, which was colonized directly from Asia, Arab progress southward was stopped by the broad belt of dense forest, stretching almost across the continent somewhat south of 10掳 North latitude, which barred their advance much as the Sahara had proved an obstacle to their predecessors. The rainforest cut them off from knowledge of the Guinea coast and of all Africa beyond. One of the regions which was the last to come under Arab rule was that of Nubia, which had been controlled by Christians up to the 14th century.



For a time the African Muslim conquests in South Europe had virtually made of the Mediterranean a Muslim lake, but the expulsion in the 11th century of the Saracens from Sicily and southern Italy by the Normans was followed by descents of the conquerors on Tunisia and Tripoli. Somewhat later a busy trade with the African coastlands, and especially with Egypt, was developed by Venice, Pisa, Genoa and other cities of North Italy. By the end of the 15th century Spain had completely removed the Muslims, but even while the Moors were still in Granada, Portugal was strong enough to carry the war into Africa. In 1415 a Portuguese force captured the citadel of Ceuta on the Moorish coast. From that time onward Portugal repeatedly interfered in the affairs of Morocco, while Spain acquired many ports in Algeria and Tunisia.



Portugal, however, suffered a crushing defeat in 1578 at al Kasr al Kebir, the Moors being led by Abd el Malek I of the then recently established Saadi Dynasty. By that time the Spaniards had lost almost all their African possessions. The Barbary states, primarily from the example of the Moors expelled from Spain, degenerated into mere communities of pirates, and under Turkish influence civilization and commerce declined. The story of these states from the beginning of the 16th century to the third decade of the 19th century is largely made up of piratical exploits on the one hand and of ineffectual reprisals on the other. In Algiers, Tunis and other cities were thousands of Christian slaves.



As for southern and eastern Africa, there is little available on the Internet. If I were you, I would speak to your university library or your lecturer/tutor.



I have attached sources for your reference.



RegardsCan you please tell me about Africa in the year, 1400?
continent not a county but they did have nobles and slaves, in some parts of africa at least
Look it up on wikipedia and you'll have more of a definitive answer than here. Also, I'm not going to do your homework for you.
hey, cremedelacreme gave some good insights, but we do know of many things that happened in Africa around1400 before the Europeans started pushing for the coasts of Africa slowly after the 1500s led by the Portuguese and followed by others. Firstly there is wide resoruces about North Africa, so I'll leave that out, you can find your own way there.



West Africa, the ruling Empire in Ghana was the Ashantis who had gained power from slightly northern empires as the Ashantis had gold on their lands and sold it off to the arab traders. also the hausas were powerful in northern nigeria, not to mention the fulanis, etc, just look at the history of some of these peoples. The strength of these kingdoms, and their numerical force made it impossible for West Africa to be colonised (like for example accross the Atlantic, Brazil was fastly being settled by the Portuguese).



the Ashantis are still matrilinear in heritabe and power, check them out for gender roles in your study. this means that it's the mother's blood line that is the royal line, though kigs rule, queen mothers are the king makers.



Education is easiest to discuss, since only in the arab influenced areas of Africa and in Ethiopia was there a written educational system of both religious and other teachings. All other parts of Africa were based on oral tradition, natural religions and various religious and medical orders that were passed on. Some crafts were taught within the royal towns, such as cloth weaving (all accross africa), jewelry, bronze making etc.



but I still say better find out yourself, there are lots of books on the subject if you venture deep enough.