- Indigenous Kingdoms
- Nubia was Africa's first state, controlled central Africa and Northern Sudan over 3,000 years ago.
- Kingdom of Axum controlled northern Ethiopia
- both of these places looked towards Egypt as their political model
- Africa's first indigenous states were found in the Sahel around 700 C.E.
- Included Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem
- these areas gained wealth by importing salt, monopolizing horsebreeding, and mastering cavalry warfare
- West Africa contained large empires as well as centralized states.
- Yoruba- praticed a city state government
- still one of the most urbanized and populated areas of Africa
- The Sahel was home to the most powerful states until the 1600s, when power was shifted to Gulf of Guniea because of new slave trade opportunities.