Harun Al-Rashid - Abbasid Caliph

Harun Al-Rashid - Abbasid Caliph

Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) came to power as the fifth Abbasid caliph after his brother Musa al-Hadi died under mysterious circumstances, perhaps on the order of al-Khaizuran, al-Rashid’s mother. While still in his teens al-Rashid had led successful military advances against the Greek Byzantine empire in Anatolia.

He ruled at the zenith of Abbasid power and wealth. The Abbasid capital, Baghdad, with 1 million inhabitants, was a center for learning, the arts, and conspicuous consumption. A keen patron of the arts, especially poetry, al-Rashid maintained a lavish court with vast palaces and gardens adorned with jewel-encrusted tapestries and fountains.

The lavish lifestyle of the royal court was popularized in the long series of fanciful tales in The Thousand and One Nights, known in the West as the Arabian Nights. Although his court enjoyed poetry, music, and sumptuous feasts, Harun al-Rashid was a practicing Muslim who made the pilgrimage to Mecca accompanied with a large entourage.

According to legend, he also went out on the streets of Baghdad in various disguises to talk with his subjects and learn their opinions and reactions to the government. His mother, Khaizuran, who had been a Yemeni slave, exerted considerable influence in the political life of the court and was a rich landowner in her own right. His favorite wife, Zubaidah, dominated palace life, holding enormous parties and celebrations.


Harun al-Rashid also received ambassadors from the Holy Roman Empire and China and showered them with exotic and expensive gifts. But amid the luxury there were signs of economic decline, as agricultural productivity in Iraq slowed and the farming out of tax collecting to private individuals led to corruption and inefficiency.

As caliph, Harun al-Rashid put down rebellions in northern Iran and Syria and led his forces deep into Anatolia in 791 c.e. where he demanded and received huge monetary tributes from the Byzantine Empire. When these payments ceased in 802 c.e. Harun al-Rashid quickly moved against the Byzantine emperor, defeating him on several occasions. These conflicts increased the religious enmity between these two great empires.

Tribute of Caliph Harun Al Rashid to Charlemagne

In 789 c.e. after a palace scandal, Harun al-Rashid imprisoned and killed key members of the important Barmakid family. Of Persian origin, the Barmakids had often acted as extremely able viziers (ministers) for the Abbasid rulers. Over his North African territories (present-day Tunisia and Algeria) al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab as governor in 800 c.e.

He went on to establish the Aghlabid dynasty, ruling until 909 c.e. when the Fatimid dynasty based in Egypt replaced it. Harun al-Rashid died on military maneuvers to quell a rebellion in northern Iran in 809 c.e. After his death his sons immediately began to fight over power and territory, thereby marking the beginning of the decline and disintegration of the Abbasid empire.

Abbas the Great of Persia

Abbas the Great of Persia

Shah Abbas the Great reigned from 1588 to 1629 during the zenith of Safavid glory and power. He effectively unified all of historic Persia and centralized the state and its bureaucracy.

Using loyal slave soldiers (ghulam) recruited among Caucasians, Abbas successfully destroyed the influence of the Qazilbash princes and extended Crown-owned land taken from defeated local rulers. With English advisers, he moved to reform the army into a successful fighting force.

In the Ottoman-Safavid Wars, Abbas was generally successful. He conquered northwest Persian and in 1623 took Baghdad and then Basra in southern present-day Iraq from the Ottomans. His forces seized Hormuz in the Persian Gulf in 1622, thereby extending Safavid power along this important seafaring trade route.


By the time Abbas came to power, the majority of the people in Safavid Persia, who had previously been Sunni Muslims, had become Shi’i. Qom and Mashad, sites holy in Shi’i tradition, were enlarged into centers for pilgrimages, and the veneration of Shi’i imams became widespread.

The martyrdom of Husayn, Ali’s son, was annually commemorated in massive passion plays and ceremonies; pilgrimages to Kerbala, in present-day Iraq, where Husayn had been killed, became a major event for devout Shi’i.

However, unlike many of his predecessors, Abbas encouraged religious tolerance. He encouraged foreign traders, especially Christian Armenians, who were known as skilled silk producers, to move to Iran. Although the sale of silk became a royal monopoly, Abbas provided Armenians financial inducements, including interest-free loans for building houses and businesses, to move to the outskirts of Isfahan.

In 1592, Abbas made Isfahan his new capital and turned it into a center for Safavid arts, culture, and commerce. Under Abbas, Isfahan’s population grew to more than one-half million people and became a major trading center.

He sent envoys to Venice, the Iberian Peninsula, and eastern Europe to encourage trade in luxury textiles and other goods; he also provided tax incentives to foreign traders. By 1617, the East India Trade Company had established trading posts along Persian Gulf, and Bandar Abbas became a major port. Along northern routes, the Safavids also enjoyed a lively trade with Russia.

As befitted 16th- and 17th-century monarchs, Abbas presided over a lavish court. He was the patron to numerous court poets and painters, even allowing portraits of himself and members of his court to be painted.

Like Suleiman I the Magnificent of the rival Ottoman Empire, Abbas, who had killed or blinded several of his sons, left no able successor. After his death, the Safavid empire entered into a century-long period of decline. It is a tribute to Abbas’s abilities as an eksekutif and leader that the empire survived as long as it did.

Kongo Kingdom of Africa

Kongo Kingdom of Africa

The kingdom of the Kongo (Kongo dya Ntotila) flourished along the Congo River in the west-central coast of Africa from about the 14th century. The kingdom covered a large part of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the king (the manikongo) lived in what is now Angola.

King Nimi, from near present-day Boma, conquered the Congo Plateau. He and his followers married into the local elite and he was accepted as ruler of the region. The wealth of Kongo was based on trade in ivory, hides, and slaves, and it also used a shell currency popular in western Africa.

In 1482, King João II of Portugal sent an expedition, under the command of Diogo Cão, to explore the west coast of Africa, and they reached the Congo River in the following year. Diogo Cão sent a delegation to see the fifth king of the Kongo, Nzinga-a-Cuum (or Nzinga Nukuwu), who was living at Mbanza (São Salvador do Congo). Nzinga-a-Cuum asked Cão to take charge of a young relative, Caçuto, and others, and take them back to Lisbon to receive a Christian education.


Caçuto learned Portuguese and much about Portuguese and European history, also converting to Christianity. At Bela in 1489, he was baptized and took the name João Silva, after King João II of Portugal, and Pire Silva, a court official who had served as his godfather. Caçuto then returned to Mbanza.

Nzinga-a-Cuum had become wary of the Portuguese. Possibly worried about Portuguese military power, Nzinga-a-Cuum converted to Christianity, becoming King João I of the Kongo. However he had long practiced polygamy. After his baptism, he returned to his many wives and disowned his son, who, with his mother and other members of the family, sought the protection of the Portuguese.

When his father died in 1506, Afonso returned to Mbanza, was crowned, and then set about converting his people to Catholicism. He regularly corresponded with King Manuel I of Portugal and sent over more of his subjects to Lisbon to receive a European education.

When Afonso I of Kongo died in 1542, his son and successor Pedro I became the next king; he was succeeded briefly afterward by Francisco I (Mpudi a Nzinga Mvemba). Pedro became king again briefly.

A nephew, Diogo, disputed these two rulers and staged a rebellion against Pedro and then Francisco and then Pedro again. He forced Pedro to seek sanctuary in a Catholic church, where he wrote and pleaded for help from King João III the Pious of Portugal and from the pope.

Diogo came to the throne at a time when some Portuguese traders were eager to expand the slave trade, and Diogo was eager to profit from this. When he died in 1561, his illegitimate son, Afonso II, succeeded him, and a violent succession crisis broke out.

While he was attending Mass within months of becoming king, Afonso II was murdered by his brother Bernardo. Bernardo I reigned for six years. His successor, Henrique I, was king for a year before being forced to flee when the neighboring kingdom of Jagas invaded Kongo. Henrique was succeeded by Alvaro I, who reigned for 19 years and brought some stability to the country.

Alvaro I also stepped up the slave trade and sent as many as 14,000 slaves annually to Brazil. Finally Antonio I, who became king in 1661, quarreled with the Portuguese over control of the slave trade. In 1665, he gathered his supporters and met the Portuguese in battle at Mbwila. He was wounded in the fighting, captured, and subsequently beheaded.

After 1678, after a violent internal civil war, the kingdom of Kongo rapidly fragmented into a number of warring states. The kings of Kongo—descended from Afonso I—did, however, continue to hold court and conduct ceremonial functions.

Henrique III, Afonso Nlengi, reigned from 1793 until 1802, and the male line continued until Pedro VII, Afonso, died in 1962, whereupon Isabel María da Gama became the regent. Although some people wanted to restore the Kongo monarchy, when Angola gained its independence in 1975, the new government refused to recognize its existence.

Mahmud of Ghazni

Mahmud of Ghazni

Mahmud of Ghazni, founder of the Ghaznavid Empire, was the son of Sebuk-Tigin, a Turkic slave soldier who rose through military service to lead a small client state of the Abbasid dynasty in Afghanistan. Mahmud assumed control of this state in 997 after defeating a challenge from his brother Ismail.

Although the state he inherited was small, Mahmud moved aggressively to expand his landholdings, launching military expeditions into eastern Iran. Ghaznavid forces conquered Khurasan in 999, which led to the collapse of the Samanid dynasty, and in 1009, the Iranian province of Sijistan also fell.

The Ghaznavids defeated their only rivals to power in the eastern Islamic lands, the Khwarazmians, in 1017. Mahmud pushed as far west as the Iranian province of Rayy—ruled by the Buyid confederation based in Baghdad—and conquered it in 1029.


Despite his substantial conquests in eastern and central Iran, Mahmud’s greatest legacy was the expansion of Muslim power eastward into South Asia. Beginning in 1001 Ghaznavid armies campaigned in India, occasionally returning to Iran to beat back incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes from Central Asia.

Mahmud went as far south in India as the state of Gujarat, though he was only able to establish firm control over the northern region of Punjab. Although he used Hindu Indian auxiliary troops, Mahmud also ordered or allowed the destruction of Hindu temples.

However as a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim, he also ordered the persecution of Shi’i Muslims, both in the Indus Valley and in Rayy, which had been ruled by the Shi’i Buyids. Mahmud’s military successes were balanced out by his patronage of certain Muslim scholars and philosophers, including the famous historian and anthropologist Abu Raihan al-Biruni, who wrote a lengthy and detailed study of the Indian subcontinent.

At its height, during the reign of Mahmud, the Ghaznavid Empire stretched from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Punjab and northern India. After Mahmud’s death in 1030, his son Masud assumed the throne. However the empire’s centralized structure began to disintegrate, as Masud concentrated on further expanding Ghaznavid authority in India while failing to recognize the threat posed by the Seljuk dynasty, which began to move into Ghaznavid lands in Iran.

Masud tried to stop the Seljuk advance but was defeated in 1040 at the Battle of Dandanqan and was overthrown the next year. The Ghaznavids remained in power until 1187, though their landholdings were steadily reduced until they included only the city of Ghazna in Afghanistan and small sections of that region.

Akan States of West Africa

Akan States of West Africa

The Akan people of West Africa are descandants of the residents of the early Akan states and continue to live in the area east of the Mende people that makes up present-day Ghana and the Ivory Coast. It is believed that the Akan people have been present in West Africa since the first century.

However, it was not until the 15th century that the world outside Africa became aware of the Akan states. Most of the early information on the Akan came from the Portuguese who developed the West African gold trade.

When the Portuguese first appeared in West Africa, the area controlled by the Akan states stretched from the equatorial forest southward to the Ofin and Pra Rivers. This area roughly compares to what later became the states of Ashanti and Adansi.


While locals called the early Akan settlements Akyerekyere, Europeans identified the people as belonging to two separate groups, the Akany and Twifu (or Twifo). While a number of scholars suggest that members of Akan states were of Dyula ancestry, others disagree. It is true that a number of Dyula settlements existed in Akan states, but the most prevalent view is that Akan states grew in strength to rival Dyula rather than evolving from it.

Further arguments that support the belief that the Akan states were separate from Dyula center on cultural differences. Two customs that were distinctly Akan in nature and that had no counterpart in Dyulan culture were the annual yam festivals and the tradition of matrilineal inheritance.

Subsequent studies of the Akan people have led scholars to believe that the southern branch of the Akan, the Fante, traveled in earlier times from the Volta Gap to the coastlands of Accura, where they intermarried with existing inhabitants.

As the area expanded, several powerful Akan states emerged. The oldest of these is thought to be Bono, which was also called Brong. Asante, which later came to be known as Ashanti, proved to be the most powerful Akan state. Others included Akwamu, Denkyira, Akyem, and Fante.

Europe and the Akan States

When the Portuguese established their presence in West Africa in 1471, they discovered that the Akan people were not living in towns, as was typical in Africa during this period. Instead, the Akan were occupying small kingdoms ruled by kings and queens in the savanna north of the existing gold belt.

Within each kingdom, families that were descended from seven or eight particular clans, identified by matrilineal lineage, lived in villages where they were ruled by their own chieftains. In addition to the chieftains, each family and clan had its own leader. All of the families, clans, and villages worshipped gods that they had individually deified. The various lineages also had their own symbols, which were used to identify matrilineal ancestry.

Once it became clear that the gold trade would develop into a significant economic undertaking, the Akan states realized that it was in their best interest to control the route to and from the Gold Coast.

As a result, the Akan states took on a prominent role in developing West Africa. Early on, the Akan depended on three significant areas to establish their presence in the gold trade. The first of these was Bona, which was located close to the Lobi gold mine.

The others were Banda, which controlled passage to the main gold trading route through the Volta Gap, and Bono, where Bono-Mansa, the capital of the early Akan states, was located. Over the following decades, the gold trade with Portugal exploded, reaching its peak in 1560 with West African gold providing one-fourth of all revenue for Portugal.

From the earliest days, the Akan had been heavily involved in agriculture, developing a farming belt along the outer environs of the equatorial forest where they grew yams and oil-producing palms.

Other agricultural activities included the production of plantain, bananas, and rice, as well as collecting kola nuts, raising livestock, hunting, fishing, and making salt. The density of the soil in and around the forest limited the type of produce that could be grown, and increasing populations soon exhausted the soil.

As a result, the Akan people entered the equatorial forests, where they cleared enough land to support the needs of the people. In the 17th century, agricultural production and the growth of the trade along the Gold Coast led to permanent settlements in the equatorial forest.

Rates of urbanization and increasing sophistication among the Akan states subsequently led to the emergence of more complex political and social structures. Strong leadership among the people of the Akan states allowed them to retain their own cultures in the midst of the expanding European presence, while winning the respect of the Europeans in the process.

Slavery in The Akan States

In the past, attempts by some Akan leaders to dominate the entire region had resulted in tribal wars. As a result, victorious tribes had begun selling members of conquered tribes at local European slave markets.

The more vulnerable tribes, such as the Ewe who lived in the lower Volta area, were continually subjected to being enslaved. Additionally, certain Africans were born into lineage slavery and were forced from their earliest years to serve the dominant African groups. The Akan states also bought slaves from the Portuguese.

Most of these came from Benin, where the government regularly sold off its captives. After 1516, when the government of Benin reduced its military activity, most of the slaves that the Akan states purchased from Portugal came from the Niger Delta and the Igbo region.

The Akan states retained some slaves for local use, while others were placed on slave ships bound for markets along the Atlantic slave-trading route. Domestically, the Akan states used slaves in royal households and in transporting goods to market. Additionally, large numbers of slaves were put to work in construction, in mines, and on farms.

A smaller number of slaves were employed as artisans in various crafts. The Akan states also designated some slaves to be trained to use flintlock muskets as part of citizen armies employed in the Akan quest to crush neighboring states and expand the existing Akan empire.

Along with slaves, the Akan states also commandeered the services of immigrants and migrants to be employed in various tasks. In general, both slaves and forced labor were allowed limited freedom because their numbers prevented total control over the population.

Rivalry Among Akan States

As individual states became more powerful, competition arose among the Akan states, with Denkyira and Akwamu emerging as the most powerful. By the middle of the 17th century, Denkyira had won the right to control most of the western gold-bearing area and had begun forging an empire leading northward to the established European trading routes that led to Banda and Bono.

During the 1670s, Denkyira seized control of the entire area around the western Gold Coast and beyond. On the eastern coast, Akwamu had begun to do the same. From 1677 to 1781, Akwamu worked on its campaign to win control of Accara, which had been under Denkyira control since 1629. Ultimately, Akwamu annexed Accara, in addition to the surrounding areas of the eastern territory.

This expansion provided them with direct control of the trading forts operated by the English, Dutch, and Danish along the eastern Gold Coast. Thus, by 1702, Akwamu had also gained control of the east coast slave-exporting businesses. Despite their enormous strength, greed ultimately destroyed both Denkyira and Akwamu.

Asante, which had originally been a dependency of Denkyira’s, emerged as a major contender in the ongoing power struggle of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, giving birth to the powerful Ashanti state. Ashanti was formed from the various Akan states that had gathered together in the north-central section of the equatorial forest.

The combined strength of these states enabled them to dominate the trading route from western and central Sudan. Within the state of Ashanti, the various kings agreed to accept the supremacy of one king to be based in the capital city of Kumasi. The first Ashanti king was Osei Tutu (c. 1680–1717).

In 1698, Osei Tutu declared war on Denkyira, using arms from Akwamu. In 1701, Ashanti finally succeeded in overwhelming Denkyira, thereby gaining essential territory for its southward expansion.

Three decades later, Akyem, an important Ashanti ally, defeated Akwamu. After the downfall of Denkyira and Akwamu, Ashanti became the most powerful influence in the area now known as Ghana, continuing to rule until the end of the 19th century when the British conquered the area.

Ashanti Development and Expansion

Over the course of the 18th century, Ashanti strengthened its hold on the central forest region and began reaching outward to expand its territory. Each captive area was forced to pay tribute to Ashanti. Areas such as Dagoomba in the northeastern area of the equatorial forest paid their tribute in slaves, which had in turn been taken captive from more remote areas of Africa.

Ashanti then traded those slaves for firearms, smelted iron, and copper. Between the 15th and 19th centuries, some 4 million slaves had been taken for this purpose from south of the equator in an area that extended from Cameroon to Kunene.

Until the pope banned the sale and trade of European firearms to Ashanti out of fear that radical Muslims would lay hold of the guns and use them against Christian traders, the Portuguese regularly traded weapons to Ashanti in exchange for slaves.

By 1820, the Ashanti Empire controlled some 250,000 square kilometers that had been organized into three distinct regions. The first was composed of the six metropolitan chiefdoms that had furnished the military power for King Osei Tutu.

The bulk of the people of Akan descent lived in the second region. The third was composed of dependencies, such as Gonja and Dagomba, which were required to pay tribute of 1,000 slaves each year.

Since the strength of the Ashanti state was always dependent on the force of its military rather than on a sense of nationalism, it became impossible to maintain a hold on those tributary states that made up two-thirds of the Ashanti Empire. This weakness made Ashanti more vulnerable when the British declared war on the state in the 19th century.

Today, the remaining Akan people belong to either eastern or western Akan groups. The five groups of eastern Akan, which all speak Twi, include Asanta, Auapem, Akyem, Denkyria, and Gomua. Sehwi-speaking Western Akan is made up of Anya, Ahanta, Baule, Sanwi (Afema), Nzima, and Aowin.

Despite the fact that each subgroup has its own dialect, groups are able to communicate with one another. While the Akan people continue to practice the tradition of matrilineal descent, some changes have been instituted to make inheritance laws more equitable.

Know-Nothings

Know-Nothings

The American Party, or Know-Nothing Party, developed inwards the context of the increasing sectional tensions that led to the Civil War. An exclusive, native Protestant, anti-immigrant, together with anti-Catholic organization, it stemmed from the nativist displace together with from the anxiety caused past times the massive influx of immigrants, reaching its peak inwards the 1850s.

The Papal Plot

Foreign immigration led many conservatives to believe that the nation’s social together with fifty-fifty political ills could live solved past times the elimination of unusual influence. The province had experienced an unprecedented current of immigrants inwards the mid-nineteenth century, reaching dazzling numbers.

From 1841 to 1860, to a greater extent than than iv 1000000 immigrants arrived, alongside 2 notable peaks: 369,980 inwards 1850 together with 379,000 inwards 1851, the bulk of whom were Irish Gaelic (1.2 million) together with High German (more than a million). In cities such equally Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, together with St. Louis, immigrants outnumbered native-born citizens.


Many feared the touching on the rattling textile of the United States of such large groups, impoverished, ignorant, illness ridden, together with alien inwards their religion together with languages. From a political indicate of view, many traditional parties were distressed past times the growing political influence of those groups inwards large cities, peculiarly Catholics, since many of these immigrants tended to live manipulated past times urban democratic political machines.

Consequently, in that location developed a rigid belief inwards a papal plot to subvert U.S. values together with fifty-fifty destroy U.S. institutions together with cultural homogeneity. In addition, Catholics were deemed unfit to alive inwards a democracy together with unpatriotic because they owed allegiance to the pope.

The Irish Gaelic were peculiarly blamed equally tools used past times the pope to command U.S. religious together with political life. Moreover, the keen number of Catholics moving to the Midwest caused the Know-Nothings together with other nativists to intend that the powerfulness of the pope mightiness live transferred there.

By the goal of the 1840s, several nativist hush-hush societies were formed to protect together with relieve the country, supposedly threatened past times an alien menace. In 1849, Charles Allen, a New Yorker, formed a hush-hush fraternal social club made upwardly of native-born Protestant working men, artisans, together with minor businessmen, who feared economical contest from cheaper immigrant labor.

It was called the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, together with evolved into a hush-hush political displace (with a formal pledge of secrecy) known equally the American Party, formed inwards 1854 past times delegates from 13 states. If questioned, members were required to say, “I know nothing,” thence the pop appellation. They pledged never to vote for whatsoever foreign-born or Catholic candidate.

Know-Nothings made broad piece of job of newspapers together with periodicals for their propaganda, together alongside a network of activists from Boston to the Mississippi Valley. Some predicted that the pope together with his regular army would the world on U.S. shores to fix a novel Vatican inwards Cincinnati, Ohio.

One famous Know-Nothing was Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, who wrote a serial of articles denouncing a “foreign conspiracy.” Another was Lyman Beecher, a seventh-generation Puritan preacher. Intent on stopping the West from becoming Catholic country, he wrote that he came to Cincinnati “to battle the Pope for the garden spot of the world.” Mob attacks on Catholic churches inwards New England presently became frequent.

Popularity without Long-lasting Results

In practice, the Know-Nothings’ political aims were non so much to suppress immigration, nor fifty-fifty trammel it—although approximately sponsored resolutions to bar paupers together with criminals—but to command the influence of foreigners together with “purify” U.S. politics.

Their legislative programme called for the exclusion of foreigners together with Catholics from populace office, for to a greater extent than stringent naturalization laws (extension of the residency menstruum earlier naturalization from 5 to twenty-one years), for literacy tests equally a prerequisite for voting, together with for restrictions on liquor sales.

The Know-Nothings capitalized on the Compromise of 1850 together with the furor over “Bleeding Kansas,” which led to a primal political realignment inwards the mid-1850s, winning national prominence chiefly because the 2 major parties—Whigs together with Democrats—were at that fourth dimension breaking apart over the slavery issue.

By 1855 they had captured command of the legislatures inwards parts of New England together with were the dominant opposition political party to the Democrats inwards New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, together with Louisiana.

In the presidential election of 1856, the party, past times so mainly composed of southerners equally a trial of the internal debates over slavery, supported sometime Whig president Millard Fillmore alongside a simplistic platform—reputedly the shortest inwards U.S. history: “America must dominion America.”

When the vote was counted, Fillmore gathered most i 1000000 pop votes (21 percentage of the pop vote) together with 8 electoral votes. In Congress, the political party had 5 senators together with forty-three representatives.

Afterwards, Know-Nothingism declined for internal reasons: lack of efficient organization, the precipitous reject inwards immigration, the failure to force whatsoever legislation against immigration together with Catholics, disagreement over secrecy, together with the mounting violence of its supporters (rioting together with bloodshed took house during the elections).

The slavery number broke downwards the party, equally was the illustration for the Whigs together with the Democrats. In 1855, at the party’s start convention inwards Philadelphia, when southern delegates pushed a resolution to back upwardly the Kansas-Nebraska Act, northern delegates left the room.

While northern workers felt to a greater extent than threatened past times the southern Slave Power than past times the pope together with Catholic immigrants, at the same time, fewer southerners were willing to back upwardly a political party that ignored the query of the expansion of slavery. By 1860, many members together with sympathizers joined the ranks of the growing Republican Party alongside a political platform based on gratis soil.

In fact, both parties overlapped ideologically; their supporters both believed inwards conspiracy, i existence the pope’s, the other the slaveholders’. However, historians accept debated whether the inevitability of the Know-Nothings’ reject inwards favor of Republicanism was because the papal plot was less plausible than the slaveholders’ conspiracy.

The anti-immigration opinion of the political party was condemned past times many Americans, similar Abraham Lincoln, who frowned on their discriminatory together with exclusionist philosophy equally betraying such sacred U.S. values equally equality together with hospitality to immigrants; or William H. Seward, who attacked their failure to run into that U.S. economical evolution required immigrants.

In 1855, Abraham Lincoln wrote inwards a mortal letter: “I am non a KnowNothing.... As a patch nosotros began past times declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We at i time practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings larn control, it volition read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, together with foreigners, together with catholics.’”

The Know-Nothings left an indelible grade on U.S. politics. The displace eroded loyalty to the national political parties, was instrumental inwards the breakdown of the Whig Party, together with made the political scheme to a greater extent than frail earlier the divisive number of slavery.

Ghana, Mali, and Songhai

Ghana, Mali, and Songhai

Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were three of the greatest western African trading states. Beginning with Ghana as early as 300 c.e. and ending with the conquest of the Songhai by Morocco in the 16th century c.e., they dominated the trade of gold, salt, and merchandise between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Arab scholars and merchants as far away as Baghdad marveled at the wealth of these African states.

The geographer al-Ya’qubi claimed that “gold is found in the whole of this country.” But the trade of gold and salt was not the only basis for West African civilization. Remarkable cultural, intellectual, and cultural achievements made Timbuktu and other cities famed centers for the production of books in theology, history, and science, books whose weight was often valued more highly than gold.

Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were successful and well-organized states that overcame tribal divisions and fused traditional beliefs with the universal ambitions of Islam. The internal strength of these West African empires was what made the gold trade so successful.


An intricate system of silent trade, transport, safe passage for merchants, and control over a vast array of tribes and different geographical zones from the Sahara desert of modern Mauritania to the thick jungles south of the Niger River kept the lifeblood of trade flowing. When these empires declined, so too did the trade in gold.

The historical sources for the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai are written Arabic sources with a bias against non-Islamic beliefs, oral histories passed down by African griots or storytellers, and archaeology. Archaeological digs continue to reveal surprising secrets about the richness and strength of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, sometimes confirming stories that were once dismissed as fantasy.

Both written sources and oral traditions speak of the wealth and fame of the ancient kingdom of Wagadu. Arabic sources call the kingdom Ghana, a name that means “king” in the Soninke language. The vast kingdom included the modern-day countries of Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali. The climate of West Africa was dramatically different 1,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence suggests that the parched climate of the Sahara drastically expanded south after 800–1050 c.e., when the empire of Ghana was at its height.

The capital of Ghana, Kumbi-Saleh, once the wealthiest city in West Africa, is now a remote archaeological site in the middle of the Sahara. Climate change had a dramatic impact on West Africa as the center of power moved from near Ghana in the north, to Mali in the center, to the Songhai farther in the south.

The kingdom was matrilineal, meaning that the king inherited the throne through the mother’s line; his sister’s son succeeded the king. Matrilineal inheritance and the powerful position of women were constant features of traditional Saharan society. According to Al-Bakri, the king of Ghana followed traditional African beliefs but respected Muslims who came to trade in his kingdom, often putting them under his personal protection.

The Almoravids, Berber, Muslim nomads from the desert attacked Kumbi-Saleh in 1076 c.e. and weakened much of the empire of Ghana. Nevertheless, Ghana remained strong until it was annexed by Mali, an even wealthier and larger trading empire that formed south of Ghana.

The empire of Mali was founded by Sundiata, a king who not only overcame external enemies but his own physical disabilities to construct an empire second only to the vast Mongol horde of Asia. According to legend, Sundiata’s brothers were massacred by Sumanguru, king of the Sosso people, rivals of the Mandinke, and the people of Mali.

Sundiata, considered a harmless invalid who could not even walk, was spared. Accounts tell how he was treated as an animal and taunted by other children. He learned to walk on iron braces and became one of the strongest warriors and hunters.

In 1230 c.e., some 18 years after the massacre of his brothers, the young Sundiata organized an army and overthrew Sumanguru of the Sosso at the village of Kirina in 1235 c.e. The dramatic Battle of Kirina is still recounted by griots as a struggle between two great magicians.

Sundjata, the hero, seemed to have both the power of Yang Mahakuasa and the traditional African nature gods on his side. After his victory Sundjata united the Mandinke chieftains and gained control over all the southern ends of the trans-Saharan trading routes. The successors of Sundjata, including a former palace slave named Sakura, expanded and consolidated the empire, conquering the cities of Timbuktu and Gao.

A pilgrimage to Mecca was one of the Five, or Six, Pillars of Islam and necessary for all believers who could afford the journey. Mansa Musa, who reigned from 1312 to 1337 c.e., made the most famed royal pilgrimage to Mecca. Egyptian scholars give accounts of an enormous and extravagant royal caravan that visited Cairo on the way to Mecca.

The chronicler Al-Maqrizi said that he paid so much gold in his purchases of fabrics, slaves, and provisions that he caused the value of gold currency in Cairo to drop dramatically. Mansa Musa not only returned to Mali from Mecca with greater devotion to Islam, but he brought several scholars and architects home with him, including the Andalusian architect al-Sahili, who helped transform the traditional architecture of Mali.

Although he did not force the conversion of his people, he encouraged the growth of Islamic schools and developed a more methodical form of government using written Arabic. It could be argued that this tolerant fusion of West African and Muslim civilization made Mali one of the most advanced civilizations in the world.

Using Eastern models, Mansa also established administrative and bureaucratic districts, keeping a close hold on his vast territories. The death of Mansa Musa (c. 1337 c.e.) led to a succession of kings unable to manage Mali’s enormous size. Berbers in the north threatened Timbuktu, while the Songhai people in the south began their rise as the last and most powerful of the West African empires: the kingdom of Songhai.

The backbone of Songhai power was the mighty Niger River. As the empires of Ghana and Mali rose and fell, the Songhai fishermen slowly expanded from a region south of the great bend of the river Niger. The Songhai founded the bustling trading city of Gao just south of this bend in the 1300s c.e. Most of the Songhai became clients of the Mali empire until 1435 c.e. when two Songhai princes, sensing the decline of Mali’s fortunes, demanded independence. They established a new dynasty called the Sunni.

Muslim chroniclers remember the Muslim Askia Muhammad Touré as the most famous king of the Songhai. Using the message of Islam to rally his followers, he expanded the borders of Songhai into the east of Africa, connecting his empire with the Indian Ocean trade that went as far as China. Mahmud al-Kati, who wrote a major history of the Songhai, claimed that Askia lived for some 125 years.

Although that may be an exaggeration, Askia and the river people of the Niger created a strong and magnificent empire that was not seriously threatened until the invention of firearms. Firearms gave the Moroccan army a significant advantage when the Moroccan sultan Ahmed al-Mansur invaded the Songhai during the 1580s c.e. Half of the Moroccan army died of thirst and starvation as they crossed the Sahara. Still, the Songhai warriors were no match against the firepower of the Moroccans. Soon, Songhai, the last of the great trading empires, was in ruins.

French East India Company

French East India Company

The French East India Company was one of several companies created to promote Western European commercial interests in Asia, particularly in India, beginning in the 17th century.

Lured by Spanish and Portuguese traders’ tales of lucrative spice exports from the European and other Asian markets.

France entered the Asia trading arena significantly later than Great Britain, which founded the British East India Company in 1600, and the Netherlands, which founded the Dutch East India Company (Indonesia/ Batavia) in 1602. While France attempted to cultivate trade connections with Asia in the early 17th century as well, initial expeditions failed to secure any trading posts or settlements.


During the reign of King Louis XIV (1643–1715), however, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister of finance, reorganized earlier unsuccessful trade ventures into the French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) in 1664.

Colbert sent an expedition that reached India in 1668 and built the first French factory (production center) in Surat on the western coast, and soon after another in Masulipatam on the eastern coast. In 1673, the company established its headquarters in Pondicherry, on the southeastern coast below Madras (now Chennai), and founded Chandannagar on the northeastern coast, north of Calcutta.

Madras and success rivaling that of Calcutta.

While France never became the dominant European authority in the region, for more than 50 years the French East India Company made great efforts to capitalize upon the expanding demand for textiles, dyes, and other goods that could be supplied by Indian merchants.

French accounts of the activities in port towns such as Surat detail the intricate steps involved in creating the fabrics, known collectively as indiennes (Indians). Particularly on the southeastern coast, Indian weaving villages generated thousands of bolts of textiles for eager European companies.

Most in demand were guinee cloths (cotton longcloth, usually 35 to 50 m in length), salempores (staple cotton cloth), and morees (cotton cloth of superior quality). Also coveted were the stunning toiles peintes (painted cloths) and toiles imprimés (printed cloths), as well as the magnificent silks and dyes.

The textiles were adored not only in Europe, but also in other parts of Asia; indeed, India had engaged in Asian textile trading centuries before Europeans arrived. In the Indonesian archipelago, China, and Japan, Indian cotton was popular for its lightweight, yet sturdy qualities.

In due course, the French, British, and Dutch acquired materials from India not only for their home countries, but for transport to Malacca or Java, for example, where they were traded for spices—cloves, nutmeg, mace, sugar, and pepper—crucial in Britain and Europe to preserve meats during harsh winters.

By the 18th century, the French had secured agreements to provide woven products tailored to Asian buyers’ interests: they had colored, patterned handkerchiefs specially woven for particular island markets, for example, which proved a successful entrepreneurial venture. Moreover, cloths of different types played a symbolic role in rites of passage and were sought after for use in birth, marriage, and death ceremonies, and bolts of cloth were commonly given as offerings or gifts.

A salient corollary to the French East India Company’s textile exchange is that its movements between Asia and Europe also supported the exchange of slaves. While the slave trade is often described as triangular, with the three corners Europe, Africa, and the Americas (the “New World”), trade between Europe and Asia also helped to sustain slavery.

French ships traded European goods in Asia, where they acquired cowry shells and Indian textiles highly valued in West Africa. Traders exchanged these goods in Africa for slaves, who were sent to France’s colonies in the Americas. “The circle was completed,” notes the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, “when sugar and other goods from the Americas were loaded on board and shipped back to France.”

In commencing trade with India, the French East India Company entered an already well established, complex economic system, an intricate network of production, negotiation, delivery, and distribution. Indian merchants operated large commercial fleets as well as prosperous shore-based businesses.

Inland weavers and merchants worked with overland freight deliverers and brokers, who worked with shipowners and exporters. All of these agents had to negotiate with local politicians and state officials for commercial privileges.

Regional and individual trading groups developed their own intra- and intercountry rules and practices as well. In order to gain access to the goods they desired, moreover, the French had to learn these rules and practices and successfully collaborate with indigenous envoys.

The French were able to develop manufacturing centers in various Indian states, but cooperating with Indian middlemen sometimes proved trying. In addition to conflicts between French traders and middlemen, clashes between traders and local authorities (and between middlemen and local authorities) often impeded successful business transactions.

The Dutch and the English had mastered the art of working with indigenous traders, shippers, and rulers much earlier than the French, and although their interactions were was not always seamless, they operated with that distinct advantage. In most of the towns and ports in which the French operated, there were also English and Dutch associates.

Where there was a French factory, there were likely to be English and Dutch factories as well. At the peak of the Indian trade, during which the demand for Indian goods exceeded the volume weavers and other artisans could produce, the presence of several East India companies, even in the same town, did not lead to serious rivalry.

As the three companies grew more competitive, however, the Dutch and particularly the English, better funded and more conversant in local business etiquette, were able to expand their factory outposts to larger industrial towns under their jurisdiction. These commercial strongholds became political enclaves, eventually enabling Great Britain to consolidate its power and control throughout India.

Despite its numerous settlements, after the death of Louis XIV, the French economy faltered and by 1719, the French East India Company was nearly bankrupt. The French East India Company resumed its independence in 1723.

While the British East India Company began as primarily a trading company, it increasingly became a governing power. As the British expanded not only economic but also political and colonial influence, tensions between Britain and France grew.

In 1742, Joseph Dupleix was appointed governor general of all French settlements in India and dedicated himself to exerting French power. He envisioned a French empire and to this end began to interfere in local Indian politics, playing local rulers against each other for his French benefit. In French port towns, officials equipped factories for defense.

The battle for supremacy led to a series of military conflicts between France and Britain, with triumph and defeat alternating between the two. In 1747, the French besieged and captured Madras. In 1751 and 1752, however, Englishman Robert Clive dislodged Dupleix’s forces in Arcot and Trichinopolgy, taking many French prisoners.

In 1754, the French government, anxious to make peace, recalled Dupleix to France. During the next half-century, British forces further colonized and forcefully subjugated much of India. While several Indian ports remained under French directive, Britain became the definitive Western authority of the Indian subcontinent.

Clive’s victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, which brought the state of Bengal under British control, is often cited as the landmark turning point of the British colonial heyday in India. Bereft of both authority and capital, Dupleix returned to the country for which he had so vigorously labored and died penniless in 1763.

Despite its earlier successes in both inter- and intra-continental trade, the French East India Company never regained its former eminence. Ultimately, King Louis XV suspended the enterprise; took over its forts, ships, and other properties; and in 1769, the French East India Company essentially dissolved.

Fatimid Dynasty

Fatimid dynasty map

The Fatimid dynasty (named after the prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatima, from whom the Fatimids claimed descent) was a Shi’i dynasty founded by Abd Allah. Although he was an Isma’ili, Abd Tuhan did not claim descent from the Imam Isma’il but from the Prophet’s family. When his beliefs led to his persecution in Syria, where most were Sunni Muslims, Abd Tuhan fled to North Africa, where he established a stronghold in Tunisia.

He declared himself the Mahdi and was known as Abd Tuhan al-Mahdi; he established his capital in the city of Mahidiya along the Tunisian coast. His followers crushed local rulers and branches of Shi’ism that had gained support among the Berbers. The Fatimids were especially opposed to the Kharijites, whose egalitarian principles were the opposite of their rigid religious hierarchy.

After three failed attempts to take Egypt with its rich Nile Valley, the renowned Fatimid general Jawhar al-Rumi, a former Greek slave, conquered Egypt in 969. Under Abd Allah’s great grandson al-Mu’izz (r. 953–976), the Fatimids built Cairo on the outskirts of the old Arab capital of Fustat as their new religious and administrative city. Fatimid Cairo was a walled city of palaces, mosques, and army barracks.


The Fatimids extended their rule over Palestine and Syria but were unable to overthrow the caliphate in Baghdad. At the zenith of their power, the Fatimids controlled the territory from the Orontes in Syria across North Africa. The Assassins, an offshoot of Isma’ili Fatimids, established strongholds in Syria and Persia seeking to undermine and, if possible, destroy Sunni belief and rulers.

Although they were zealous missionaries for their particular brand of Islam elsewhere, in Egypt the Fatimids were relatively benign and most of the population remained committed to orthodox Sunni practices. The Copts were retained as administrators over most of the financial affairs of state, as they had been since the Umayyad dynasty. Caliph al-Hakim (r. 996–1021) was a notable exception to Fatimid tolerance in Egypt.

Under his rule, Christians and Jews were persecuted and many churches and synagogues destroyed. His followers became known as the Druze. After al-Hakim was assassinated in 1021 his followers alleged that he had been hidden by God, not killed, much like the 12th imam, and fled Egypt for the relative security of remote mountain areas in Lebanon.

Dinar Cairo Egypt Fatimid Gold Coin Misr 364 AH 975 AD

The Fatimid navy played a key role in the dynasty’s power and wealth as it controlled the central Mediterranean and the Red Sea routes. The Fatimids also increased trans-Saharan trade. The Fatimids traded luxury goods and agricultural products with the west and east as far as India. Fatimid rulers established al-Azhar University, which became famous throughout the Muslim world, as well as numerous public buildings and commercial centers.

Two branches of the Fatimids, the Almoravids and Almohads (Unitiarians) led by Ibn Tumert, established separate dynasties in Morocco. To strengthen their armed forces the Fatimids imported slave and free Turkish soldiers but the growing dependency on outside forces gradually weakened dynasty. Thus Saladin (Salah ad din, Yusuf) had little difficulty in overthrowing the Fatimids and returning the territories to Sunni Muslim rule in 1171.

inside al-Azhar mosque