Kilwa By 1500 AD, people in Tanzania were doing pretty well. They did a lot of trading with India and the Arabian Peninsula from their biggest port at Kilwa, and other smaller ports. They bought silk and cotton cloth, steel knives, Indian and Chinese medicine, and spices like pepper and cinnamon. To get [...]
The travels of Ibn Battuta Ibn Battuta was born in Morocco, in North Africa, in 1304 AD. He was from a rich Muslim family, and he went to the best schools in his hometown of Tangier. When Ibn Battuta was twenty years old, in 1325, he went on hajj to Mecca, as many rich young [...]
East African history: Debre Dano Christian church (Ethiopia, 500s AD) East Africa trading on the Indian Ocean Because it is on the coast, East Africa had contacts with India and Egypt and West Asia, and even with China, long before other parts of Africa did. The earliest written evidence we have about East Africa [...]
