Worksheet

Counting Gold, Salt and Soldiers: Numbers from West African Sources

Grade 7 history: use a data table of prices and numbers reported by al-Bakri, al-Umari, Ibn Battuta and Leo Africanus to study Ghana, Mali, Songhai and Timbuktu.

Grade 7Social StudiesInteractive · Printable

Aligned toHIS.7.3

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11 questions
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Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 7
Subject: Social Studies
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students describe how Ghana, Mali and Songhai grew rich from the gold and salt trade.
Students read a table of reported historical numbers and explain what they show.
Students judge how reliable each reported number is from how the writer got it.

How to use

Read the passage, then go over the table and the notes about the writers together before students answer; ask which number they trust most and why.

Curriculum

C3 Framework standard covered

HIS.7.3

Describe the West African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhai, the gold and salt trade, Mansa Musa and Timbuktu.

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Counting Gold, Salt and Soldiers: Numbers from West African Sources

Read numbers that travelers and scholars reported about Ghana, Mali and Songhai.

Kingdoms of gold and salt

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Kingdoms of Gold and Salt

1Over about a thousand years, three great kingdoms rose one after another in the grasslands south of the Sahara: Ghana, Mali and Songhai. Each grew rich from trade across the desert. Gold came from mines near the upper Niger and Senegal rivers, to the south. Salt, which people in the hot grasslands needed and could not find nearby, came from mines deep in the Sahara, to the north, such as Taghaza. Traders carrying these goods passed through the kingdoms, and rulers taxed them.

2Ghana was the first. Muslim traders from North Africa crossed the desert to its capital, and its kings grew powerful by controlling the trade. In 1068 al-Bakri, a scholar in Muslim Spain, described Ghana's king and his army. Ghana lost much of its power in the 1100s.

3Mali, founded by Sundiata Keita around 1235, controlled the gold fields and the trading cities along the Niger River. Its ruler Mansa Musa, a Muslim, made the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, in 1324. On the way he stopped in Cairo, where he and his followers spent and gave away large amounts of gold. In the 1350s the traveler Ibn Battuta crossed the desert to Mali and wrote down what goods cost in its towns.

4Timbuktu, near the bend of the Niger River, grew under Mali into a center of trade and Islamic learning. In 1468 the Songhai ruler Sunni Ali took the city, and Songhai grew into an empire that many historians think was the largest of the three. About 1510, a young traveler from Fez, in North Africa, later known as Leo Africanus visited Timbuktu. Decades later his book about Africa was published in Italy for European readers.

5In 1591 an army sent by the ruler of Morocco crossed the Sahara and defeated Songhai's much larger army. The Moroccan soldiers carried guns, and Songhai's army had few. The empire broke apart. Over time, more of the gold trade moved toward ports on the Atlantic coast, where European ships now came to trade.

A salt trader from Taghaza travels south toward the gold fields in 1330. Based on paragraphs 1 and 3, whose land does he most likely cross, and what will he probably pay?

A. Morocco's land; a fee to its army
B. Songhai's land; a tax to Sunni Ali
C. Mali's land; a tax to Mali's ruler
D. Ghana's land; a tax to Ghana's king

Underline the sentence from paragraph 5 that describes a long-term change in trade, not the battle itself.

In 1591 an army sent by the ruler of Morocco crossed the Sahara and defeated Songhai's much larger army.The Moroccan soldiers carried guns, and Songhai's army had few.Over time, more of the gold trade moved toward ports on the Atlantic coast, where European ships now came to trade.

Which conclusion about the battle of 1591 does paragraph 5 best support?

A. Morocco won because it already held the gold fields.
B. Songhai's soldiers refused to fight to defend Timbuktu.
C. Songhai lost because its army was smaller than Morocco's.
D. Weapons could matter more than the size of an army.

Numbers from the sources

Read the table and the notes about the writers. Then answer the questions.

Numbers Reported by Writers (some may be exaggerated)
Writer, date	Place	What was counted	Number reported
al-Bakri, 1068	Ghana	Warriors the king could send	200,000
al-Umari, about 1337	Cairo	Gold, before Musa's 1324 visit	1 mithqal = 25 dirhams or more
al-Umari, about 1337	Cairo	Gold, after the visit and 12 years on	1 mithqal = 22 dirhams or less
Ibn Battuta, 1350s	Walata, in Mali	Price of a camel load of salt	8 to 10 mithqals of gold
Ibn Battuta, 1350s	Mali's capital	Price of a camel load of salt	20 to 30, sometimes 40 mithqals
Leo Africanus, about 1510	Timbuktu	Price of a camel load of salt	80 ducats

About the writers: Al-Bakri lived in Muslim Spain and never traveled to West Africa; he wrote from merchants' reports. Al-Umari worked in Cairo and talked with people there who had seen Mansa Musa's visit. Ibn Battuta crossed the Sahara himself and stayed in Mali for months. Walata was a trading town at the southern edge of the desert; Mali's capital lay farther south, more than three weeks' travel beyond it. Leo Africanus wrote that he was in Timbuktu when salt sold for the price he gives.

Units: A mithqal was a weight of gold, about 4.25 grams. A dirham was a silver coin. A ducat was a gold coin used in Italy.

Draw a line from each writer to how he got his information.

al-Bakri
al-Umari
Ibn Battuta
Leo Africanus

A. Reports from merchants; he never went there
B. A visit as a young man, in a book published decades later
C. Talks with people who saw a visit in his own city
D. A long stay on his own journey across the desert

Use al-Umari's two rows. What change did Mansa Musa's visit most likely cause in Cairo?

A. A mithqal of gold bought fewer silver dirhams than before.
B. A mithqal of gold bought more silver dirhams than before.
C. Salt became worth more than gold in Cairo.
D. The price of gold rose for about 12 years.

Use al-Umari's rows in the table.

The value of a mithqal of gold in Cairo fell from 25 dirhams to 22, a drop of dirhams.

Ibn Battuta reports two prices for the same load of salt. Using the notes, why was salt most likely worth more in Mali's capital than in Walata?

A. People in the capital needed less salt than people in Walata.
B. It had to be carried weeks farther from the desert mines.
C. Mali's ruler had banned the sale of salt in his capital.
D. Walata lay farther from the salt mines than the capital did.

Leo Africanus reports 80 ducats for a load of salt. Why can't a historian tell from the table alone whether salt cost more in 1510 than in the 1350s?

A. Salt was no longer traded in Timbuktu by 1510.
B. The prices use different coins and different towns.
C. Ibn Battuta did not really travel to Mali.
D. One of the two writers likely made up his price.

Which number in the table should a historian treat with the most caution?

A. Al-Bakri's 200,000 warriors, since he wrote from merchants' reports
B. Al-Umari's gold prices, since Cairo was a long way from Mali
C. Leo Africanus's salt price, since he says he was in Timbuktu
D. Ibn Battuta's salt prices, since he saw Mali's markets in person

10.

Use the table and the passage. Sort each number or event by the West African kingdom it is about.

Al-Bakri's count of warriorsMansa Musa's gold spent in Cairo in 1324Ibn Battuta's salt pricesLeo Africanus's salt price in Timbuktu, about 1510The defeat by Morocco's army

Ghana	Mali	Songhai

11.

Claim: The gold and salt trade made West African kingdoms known far beyond Africa. Do you agree? Use at least two rows of the table and one paragraph of the passage as evidence, and explain your reasoning.