Ancient African Economy
Starting around 1000 AD, West African traders also sold gold. Traders with camels carried the gold across the Sahara from West Africa to North Africa. West African traders sold salt from salt mines and people who had been enslaved (mainly women) across the Sahara Desert to North Africa. From there traders shipped the salt to Europe and to West Asia. Most of the women stayed in North Africa where they became enslaved servants for rich people.
From Central Africa, beginning about the same time, traders sailed gold and furs and ivory down the rivers to the East African coast, where they sold it to West Asian and Indian traders in exchange for glass beads and fancy silk and cotton cloth. By the 1400's AD, East African traders were also beginning to sell coffee to Sufi people in Yemen, in the Arabian Peninsula.
But, just the same as in Europe and Asia, the most important parts of the ancient African economy were farming and fishing and hunting and gathering and taking care of animals. There weren't really very many traders, or salt miners, or gold miners. Most people in West Africa and East Africa and Kush and Meroe and Central Africa were farmers. In South Africa, a lot of people were shepherds and cattle herders, and in the Kalahari Desert, where the environment was not right for farming, the San remained hunters and gatherers, like the forest people deep in the Central African rain forest.
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