West African History

West Africa used to be ruled by great kingdoms thousands of years ago. Some of the largest were the Ghana kingdom, the Mali kingdom and the Songhai kingdom. Through the power of these kingdoms many great trading cities in the Sahara were developed and the region was wealthy from trading. But the trading cities were soon demolished as the Europeans began trading by sailing along the coast, not coming into the desert. Another obstacle in the history of West Africa was the slave trade. It ripped apart families and killed and enslaved millions of West Africans who were transported to America. In West Africa, your ethnic group is more of an identity than your nationality. The largest groups in this region are the Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo groups. The different tribal languages are good for communicating within your ethnic group, but the languages of the colonists, such as French or Portuguese makes it easy to communicate with people outside your group. The main religion in West Africa is Animism, the belief that water, animals, trees and other natural objects have spirits. Today though, a majority of this region practices Islam. West Africa is a region rich with history, culture and variety and has a very advanced cultural environment for a place that has been so heavily colonized.