The northern region of the African continent is famous for its desert landscapes, such as the Saara's desertand the region of Maghreb. Since the most remote times, the peoples who started to inhabit these regions needed to organize themselves in order to get rid of the adversities of the desert. Traditional accounts of Berber tribes (nomadic peoples that inhabit the desert), which date back to the AgeOld, indicate various ways of adapting to the desert climate, from the use of clothing to food and hygiene.
During the period of AgeAverage, this North African region has undergone a process of Islamization. Some powerful Islamic kingdoms arose, such as the kingdom of Mali, beyond the domain of the sultans, who established caliphates in the northeast region of Africa, where Sudan and Egypt are today. One of the ways found to establish contact with the kingdoms that were below the Sahara desert were the caravansincamels.
In the same way that the Mediterranean Sea was the commercial center between Europe and Asia Minor in the medieval period, the Sahara desert, through the camel caravans, became the main channel for the flow of various items, such as gold, ivory, cereals, slaves, various spices and salt. In this way, camel caravans became, at the time, the main means of commercial transit in Africa.
The option for the camel, and not for other animals such as the horse, was mainly due to characteristics such as endurance physical physicality of this animal, which was able to go many days without drinking water and to carry a weight much greater than its own. body. In addition, camels also provided for the subsistence of caravansers, especially the nomads, such as the Bedouins and the Berbers, as the historian Vitorino Godinho points out:
[…] The camel by itself is almost enough to satisfy all human needs: it feeds and quenches thirst – by its meat and its milk – it serves as a mount and a beast of burden, and with its fur tents and clothing are woven. As it can withstand long days without drinking, it easily crosses otherwise almost insurmountable desolate solitudes, where there is no water and no sight of vegetation. [1] (P. 78)
Therefore, the main importance of camel caravans lay in promoting the integration of African regions that did not have much connection due to geographical aspects. Even the Islamic pilgrimage to the city of Mecca was made, by people residing in the Maghreb, via caravans. In addition, trade with southern Europe also depended on what reached the shores of the Mediterranean through camels. As Godinho pointed out, what these caravans did was create an "economic web":
[…] The Sahara ceases to be a factor of isolation of North Africa and the Land of the Blacks, and becomes like the Mediterranean, furrowed by camel cafilas and nomadic cabildos, with the scales of sedentary "islands" - the oases of date palms; not even the corso is missing – the attacks and robberies of the eternal robbers. Sudan is no longer closed in on itself, it is now facing the Maghreb, and the Maghreb, in turn, cannot be understood without the former: an economic web integrates them.” [2] (P. 79).
GRADES
[1]: Godinho, Vitorino Magalhães. The Saharan “Mediterranean” and the gold caravans. History Magazine. v. 11, no. 23, 1955. P. 78.
[2]: Idem, p. 79.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/caravanas-camelos-na-africa-idade-media.htm