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Chapter 3: Small Beginnings
The trip to Jenne was a success and Carthage’s need and desire for gold, along with the introduction of the camel, quickly fueled the rise of an expanded Aai Merewan* trade with the inhabitants of West Africa south of the Great Desert. Due to their strategic location along the Niger River, the Mandinka people were the greatest beneficiaries of this trade and local chieftaincies grew larger in response to the increased trade. During this time, there appears to have been little direct contact made between Carthage and the various Soninke and Mande polities as they grow in size and power. Carthage gained dyewoods, kola nuts, gold, ivory, and slaves whereas the West Africans gained beads, cloth, iron tools, and most vital of all, salt. This gold enabled Carthage to repay the tens of thousands of mercenaries it had hired and ensured its stability by avoiding a debilitating retread of the Mercenary War. In Carthage, Hannibal, along with the rest of his brothers were regarded as national heroes, lionized as a military genius who had ensured the continued existence and supremacy of Carthage in the western Mediterranean. In 208 BCE, Hannibal was still only 33 and while he what he had accomplished would have been the crowning achievements of other men, he was not yet satisfied with what he had done. He left behind the military and pursued a career in politics, running for and easily being elected as one of the two suffetes of Carthage. During his time in office, he enacted reforms upon the government body that judged the military and generals of Carthage, the Hundred and Four. Shrewdly leveraging his massive popular support, he opened up elections of the Council to direct voting and also limited the term of office from life to that of two years. He, along with Hasdrubal Barca and Gisco were immensely popular with both the common people and the military. Later on while he was in office, he married a woman named Sisa and had three boys and two girls with her.
In 150 BCE, a son named Kebba was born to the chief of the Mandinka state, Jenne. Starting in 130 BCE, Kebba expanded the borders of Jenne to the north and east to better control the Aai Merewan trade routes. The introduction of the dromedary camel and horse to North and West Africa revolutionized the trade and Sahelian states. The dromedary was better adapted to the arid heat of the Great Desert than the bactrian camel was and enabled far more regular and intensive contact between the different Sahel states and Carthage, and as a result, trade with the Sahel came to be a larger part of Carthage’s income and more importantly, gold supply. The horse revolutionized warfare, allowing the quicker movement of armies and aiding states in maintaining larger borders they previously had been able to. Although expensive to purchase and maintain, the horse gave the Sahel states an undeniable military advantage over the people in the tsetse belt, allowing them to occasionally raid for slaves for both foreign sale and domestic use. State formation and greater ease of transportation prompted greater political unity and the beginnings of a common Mande culture dominated by that of the Mandinka people began to spread among the Niger River. The Niger River was critical for transportation and easy efficient access to the forest region of West Africa and so the Sahel states competed with each other for control over the river. However, during these early years, the Sahel states stayed mostly confined to the region bounded by the Aai Merew and its tribes to the north and the tsetse fly belt to the south.
By the end of his conquests in 123 BCE, Kebba had enlarged Jenne’s borders twofold. He then devoted his time and energy to the task of governing, using the oral traditions that all chiefs utilized. But Kebba had always had a more outward looking mind than others; it was what drove him to expand Jenne to control more of the trade across the Great Desert and it was that same mind that led to his curiosity and interest in the Punic writings which he would discuss with the most prominent Carthaginian merchants that would traverse through his chiefdom. Realizing the potential that the Carthaginian script had for aiding the governing of his newly expanded chiefdom, he imported Punic literature in the form of scientific, historical, and business transaction texts. In 120 BCE, he also sponsored several Punic merchants to live in Jenne while they taught him, his family, and his jalis (griots) how to read and write in the Punic script. This is known because one of the merchants, a man named Abibaal, kept a journal of the nearly three years he and ten other men spent among a people he called the “Mndnk”, a black skinned race that lived next to a very large river in the “land of Jnn”. Once the jalis knew how to reproduce the script, they would then use the letters to aid their administration and would teach their descendants how to read and write as well. Because of Kebba’s actions, a modified Punic script gradually spread throughout Jenne and later to the savannah and forest expanses of West Africa in the following centuries.
The Sahel trade also affected its surrounding regions. The demand for exotic goods such as palm oil, kola nuts, ivory, leopard skins, and slaves prompted the regular gathering and collaboration of large groups in order to satisfy the quantity of goods demanded. Leaders emerged that dealt with the foreign merchants and directed the work and organization of their people to balance between producing luxury goods and agriculture needed to support the community. Trade routes that had been used for millennia were expanded, branched, and strengthened between the desert, Sahel, savannah, and forest regions and prompted the rise of small states originating from the political institutions in place among the Africans. The Asante, Yoruba, Fon and more formed loosely organized polities at this time though their populations remained quite low. Minimal Sahel influence was found here during this time due to the differences in climate and was mostly manifested in prominent members of the community being buried with foreign goods and murals and sculptures depicting horses and camels.
*I decided that the name for the Sahara would be Aai Mewer which is Egyptian for "Great Desert". "Sahara" is an Arabic term which wouldn't make sense since due to the timeline's butterflies.
Small Beginnings
208 – 117 BCE
208 – 117 BCE
The trip to Jenne was a success and Carthage’s need and desire for gold, along with the introduction of the camel, quickly fueled the rise of an expanded Aai Merewan* trade with the inhabitants of West Africa south of the Great Desert. Due to their strategic location along the Niger River, the Mandinka people were the greatest beneficiaries of this trade and local chieftaincies grew larger in response to the increased trade. During this time, there appears to have been little direct contact made between Carthage and the various Soninke and Mande polities as they grow in size and power. Carthage gained dyewoods, kola nuts, gold, ivory, and slaves whereas the West Africans gained beads, cloth, iron tools, and most vital of all, salt. This gold enabled Carthage to repay the tens of thousands of mercenaries it had hired and ensured its stability by avoiding a debilitating retread of the Mercenary War. In Carthage, Hannibal, along with the rest of his brothers were regarded as national heroes, lionized as a military genius who had ensured the continued existence and supremacy of Carthage in the western Mediterranean. In 208 BCE, Hannibal was still only 33 and while he what he had accomplished would have been the crowning achievements of other men, he was not yet satisfied with what he had done. He left behind the military and pursued a career in politics, running for and easily being elected as one of the two suffetes of Carthage. During his time in office, he enacted reforms upon the government body that judged the military and generals of Carthage, the Hundred and Four. Shrewdly leveraging his massive popular support, he opened up elections of the Council to direct voting and also limited the term of office from life to that of two years. He, along with Hasdrubal Barca and Gisco were immensely popular with both the common people and the military. Later on while he was in office, he married a woman named Sisa and had three boys and two girls with her.
In 150 BCE, a son named Kebba was born to the chief of the Mandinka state, Jenne. Starting in 130 BCE, Kebba expanded the borders of Jenne to the north and east to better control the Aai Merewan trade routes. The introduction of the dromedary camel and horse to North and West Africa revolutionized the trade and Sahelian states. The dromedary was better adapted to the arid heat of the Great Desert than the bactrian camel was and enabled far more regular and intensive contact between the different Sahel states and Carthage, and as a result, trade with the Sahel came to be a larger part of Carthage’s income and more importantly, gold supply. The horse revolutionized warfare, allowing the quicker movement of armies and aiding states in maintaining larger borders they previously had been able to. Although expensive to purchase and maintain, the horse gave the Sahel states an undeniable military advantage over the people in the tsetse belt, allowing them to occasionally raid for slaves for both foreign sale and domestic use. State formation and greater ease of transportation prompted greater political unity and the beginnings of a common Mande culture dominated by that of the Mandinka people began to spread among the Niger River. The Niger River was critical for transportation and easy efficient access to the forest region of West Africa and so the Sahel states competed with each other for control over the river. However, during these early years, the Sahel states stayed mostly confined to the region bounded by the Aai Merew and its tribes to the north and the tsetse fly belt to the south.
By the end of his conquests in 123 BCE, Kebba had enlarged Jenne’s borders twofold. He then devoted his time and energy to the task of governing, using the oral traditions that all chiefs utilized. But Kebba had always had a more outward looking mind than others; it was what drove him to expand Jenne to control more of the trade across the Great Desert and it was that same mind that led to his curiosity and interest in the Punic writings which he would discuss with the most prominent Carthaginian merchants that would traverse through his chiefdom. Realizing the potential that the Carthaginian script had for aiding the governing of his newly expanded chiefdom, he imported Punic literature in the form of scientific, historical, and business transaction texts. In 120 BCE, he also sponsored several Punic merchants to live in Jenne while they taught him, his family, and his jalis (griots) how to read and write in the Punic script. This is known because one of the merchants, a man named Abibaal, kept a journal of the nearly three years he and ten other men spent among a people he called the “Mndnk”, a black skinned race that lived next to a very large river in the “land of Jnn”. Once the jalis knew how to reproduce the script, they would then use the letters to aid their administration and would teach their descendants how to read and write as well. Because of Kebba’s actions, a modified Punic script gradually spread throughout Jenne and later to the savannah and forest expanses of West Africa in the following centuries.
The Sahel trade also affected its surrounding regions. The demand for exotic goods such as palm oil, kola nuts, ivory, leopard skins, and slaves prompted the regular gathering and collaboration of large groups in order to satisfy the quantity of goods demanded. Leaders emerged that dealt with the foreign merchants and directed the work and organization of their people to balance between producing luxury goods and agriculture needed to support the community. Trade routes that had been used for millennia were expanded, branched, and strengthened between the desert, Sahel, savannah, and forest regions and prompted the rise of small states originating from the political institutions in place among the Africans. The Asante, Yoruba, Fon and more formed loosely organized polities at this time though their populations remained quite low. Minimal Sahel influence was found here during this time due to the differences in climate and was mostly manifested in prominent members of the community being buried with foreign goods and murals and sculptures depicting horses and camels.
*I decided that the name for the Sahara would be Aai Mewer which is Egyptian for "Great Desert". "Sahara" is an Arabic term which wouldn't make sense since due to the timeline's butterflies.
- leopard9
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