Transportation by Watercraft and Horseback

Sources

Canoes. Dugout canoes are still the main means of water transportation in West Africa. Dugout canoes, each made from a single tree, were seen by European explorers in the fifteenth century and had apparently been in use for centuries. In the latter part of the fifteenth century Europeans who traveled on the Niger River reported seeing canoes made from the trunks of two large trees that had been hollowed out and joined together across the middle. A midseventeenth-century explorer of that river said that his three camels were carried in one such canoe. Used widely over hundreds of miles on the Niger, canoes changed little over the centuries. Leo Africanus also described canoe travel during his 1513-1515 journey through West Africa. He wrote that, after 15 June, the Niger River flooded for forty days, creating good conditions for merchant travel. At the high point of the river he saw many men in a “barke pass over the land of Negros.” He later wrote that the Niger overflowed during July, August, and September, “at which time the merchants of Tombuto [Timbuktu] conueigh [convey] their merchandize hither in certaine Canoas or narrow boats made of one tree, which they rowe all the day long, but at night they binde them to the shore, and lodge themselves upon the lande.” A zopoli dugout canoe with thirty or even forty-eight rowers was often used. It was apparently the kind of vessel that greeted and then attacked Alvise Ca da Mosto, when he was exploring the West African coastline for Portugal in 1455. In forty-eight-man vessels, twenty-four men rowed while the other twenty-four rested. In this way, the crew could travel night and day. Such a vessel also had a waterproof awning to protect provisions stored in the center of the craft.

River Navigation. The 2,600 miles of the Niger River—which flows in a great arc from Guinea northeast and east through Mali, and southeast through Niger and Nigeria into the Gulf of Guinea—and its tributaries were the major east-west trade routes of West Africa. These river routes—as well as the Senegal River, which flows northwest from Guinea into the Atlantic Ocean—were links to the north-south trans-Saharan trade routes that took gold from West Africa to North Africa and from there into Europe. In addition, gold was transported along the Black Volta River, which rises in Burkina Faso and flows into Lake Volta in the modern nation of Ghana. All these waterways were navigable mainly during the rainy season, which typically occurred in July, August, and September. For much of the rest of the year,

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waterfalls, rapids, sandbars, and swamps deterred the passage of boats. Even in the wet season, the Niger between Djenné and Timbuktu was shallow and not navigable by boats with sails. Some boats were propelled by pushing poles against the bottom of the river to move the boats forward. All along the river systems dugout canoes were the most common watercraft. Traders carried yams, cloves, cows, and goats by boat as far as possible into the interior of West Africa. The Hausa people who lived near the fork of the Niger and Benue Rivers (in presentday Nigeria) traded leatherwork and textiles with central Sudan and North Africa, conveying merchandise between the savanna area south of the Sahara and the forest regions along the Guinea coast. They probably traded from early times with Niger delta cities such as Oyo, Ile-Ife, and Benin.

Coastal Trade. As coastal trade between Europeans and the ethnic groups of the forest regions along the Gulf of Guinea grew more important than the trans-Sahara trade after 1500, coastal peoples began to gain power and influence. For instance, in 1553-1554 English traders bought merchandise along the Gold Coast that included 400 pounds of top-quality gold, 36 barrels of peppercorns, and 250 elephant tusks. Coastal people no longer had to rely on traders from the West African interior to transport their goods to buyers. Now they could sell directly to Europeans and avoid middlemen.

Horses. From early times in West Africa, owning a horse was a sign of prestige. Leo Africanus wrote that the horses he saw near Timbuktu were not well-bred, noting that merchants had “nags” they used for travel. Leo felt the best horses were the Arabian horses that came from the nomadic Berbers in North Africa. If a West African king heard horses were arriving on the trade routes, he commanded that a certain number be set aside for him so he could choose the best horses for himself. Of course, Leo wrote, the king was willing to pay a liberal price. Often horses (and other merchandise) sold for a lot more in Gao than they were purchased for in North Africa. According to Leo,horses bought in Europe for 10 ducats were sold in Gao for 40 to 50 ducats.

Trading Horses for Slaves. Even though they were expensive, Leo indicated that it was fairly easy to buy good horses in West Africa. He wrote that the king of Bornu traded slaves to the Berbers in exchange for the best Arabian horses, sometimes paying fifteen to twenty slaves for one horse. Many horses arrived in West Africa through this kind of trading. Because kings typically got slaves after raiding another tribe or village, Leo noted that sometimes merchants had to stay in West Africa for three or more months, waiting for a king to return from a war in which he had captured enough slaves to pay for his horses.

Uses for Horses. Many rulers of the Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and Kanem-Bornu Empires had large cavalries. In the mid thirteenth century Kanem-Bornu is said to have raided other tribes with a military force that included one hundred thousand horses and a huge number of fighting men. Horses also provided some entertainment in the ancient kingdoms of West Africa. In the Numidian Desert, Leo Africanus observed races between ostriches and Arabian horses, known for their swiftness and agility. People placed bets on the animals and the horses usually won. According to Leo, some West African tribes used horses for war and travel, while the Arabians in the desert and people of Libya also used horses for hunting. When they were used for this purpose, people did not use them for riding.

Sources

J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder, eds., The History of West Africa, second edition, 2 volumes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976, 1987).

Basil Davidson, with F. K. Buah and the advice of Ajayi, A History of West Africa to the Nineteenth Century, revised edition (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor/Doubleday, 1966).

Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa, 3 volumes, translated by John Pory, edited by Robert Brown (London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1896).

Pekka Masonen, “Trans-Saharan Trade and the West African Discovery of the Mediterranean,” in Ethnic Encounter and Culture Change: Papers for the Third Nordic Conference on Middle Eastern Studies, edited by M’hammed Sabour and Knut S. Vikor (Bergen: Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies, 1997), pp. 116-142.

D. T. Niane, ed., Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century, volume 4 of General History of Africa (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1984).

Ivan Van Sertima, ed., Blacks in Science, Ancient and Modern (New Brunswick & London: Transaction Books, 1983).