Compare and Contrast Africa and Monguls

Reflection Essay

Africa is one of the most important continents on the planet. With its vast supply of natural resources they are able to control much of the trade during the middle ages. With a sturdy foothold in the trading organization many African kingdoms were able to spread out. The Mongols however used their superior fighting skills to take over most of Eurasia during the early 13th century.

Many of the African kingdoms relied on trade to keep them thriving. Ghana a kingdom in West Africa was one of the trading kingdoms in Africa. With their abundances in Gold and Salt they were able gain control of the trading in the Middle East and parts of Europe. This large amount of interaction though trade help these kingdoms grow economically. The same cannot be said in Mongolia. They had very little aspirations for trade. They main purpose in life was to conquer kingdoms. This conquest did lead to interaction. They learned about other people during their short time in their kingdom the Mongols mainly learned about their culture including their religion. The Mongols had followers of many major religions in their empire including Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, and Daoism.

With all these different religions in was hard for the Mongols to govern every kingdom they took over. To solve this problem, the Mongols divested a political system that would allow each kingdom the ability to govern their selves. Each kingdom would have to pay a tribute to the Mongols. This is how they gain most of the wealth. The governments in Africa varied in different kingdoms. In Mali their imperialistic government help control their people.

With all the differences between African kingdoms and Mongolia there are some similarities, for example the majority of they people lived nomadically. There are kingdoms in Africa, but most of the population lived as nomads. The same can be said for the Mongols.