The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

for mostly herding peoples. Cities emerged in
response to the growth of trans-Sahara trade:
Finished goods, including cloth from North Africa,
were traded for gold, salt, kola (a caffeine rich nut),
and slaves. Warlords commanding horse-mounted
troops vied for the control of the trade routes, and
eventually founded the great kingdoms of Mali, and
Songhay. By AD 1500, Timbuktu had become a
major city, home to an important Islamic university
and library.
Seldom did pastoral and trading empires pene-
trate far into the tropical regions farther south. The
religion of Islam, which had spread through the
grasslands south of the Sahara, also made less
progress among Africans on the tropical coast. There
the tsetse fly, carrier of sleeping sickness, decimated

horse and cattle herds. Malaria, too, discouraged

potential invaders.

The village was the main unit of social organiza-

tion of sub-Saharan Africa. Some villages merged

into far-flung kinship networks and even small king-

doms, such as Benin and Congo. Relatively insu-

lated from the imperial struggles farther north,

these Africans mostly kept to themselves, growing

crops and harvesting the lush vegetation of the for-

est. By 1500, the lives of these people, too, were

about to change.

By 1500 China, with a population of 100–150 mil-

lion people, had literally walled itself away from

“barbarians” elsewhere in Asia; its own kingdom was

effectively ruled by a highly-educated class of bureau-

crats steeped in the principles of Confucianism. The

Eurasia and Africa 13

INDIAN

OCEAN

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Nil

eR

.

Islamic World

China

Sub-Saharan Africa

Europe

South India

Population (millions)

SONGHAY

EMPIRE

MUGHAL

EMPIRE

SAFAVID

EMPIRE CHINA

INDIA

AFRICA

Sahara

EMPIRE

OF MALI

BENIN

SPAIN

FRANCE

POLAND

ENGLAND

GERMAN

STATES

PORTUGAL

KONGO

Timbuktu

Constantinople

Malacca

30

30

40

70

110

140

OT

TO

MA

N

EM

PI

RE

Med

iter

ran

ean

Sea

ARA

BIA

OTTOMANEMPIR

E

Population of Major Civilizations of Europe, Asia, and Africa, AD 1500In 1500, most of the people of the “Old World”—Europe, Asia, and
Africa—belonged to one of five major civilizations. Of these, the most populous was China under the Ming Dynasty, with about 140 million
people, and then the Islamic world, with over 100 million. The fractious nations of western Europe, though less populous, had mastered
formidable new technologies of warfare.