Trans-Saharan Trade Routes

The camel caravan networks that crossed the Sahara for a thousand years, trading salt for gold and building West Africa's empires.

Overview

The camel, adopted across the Sahara in the first centuries CE, made desert crossing routine. Salt from Taghaza and Bilma moved south; gold from Bambuk, Bure and later the Akan fields moved north, along with kola, cloth, books and enslaved people. Hubs such as Awdaghost, Timbuktu, Gao and Djenne grew wealthy, and the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai taxed the transit, none more famously than Mansa Musa whose 1324 pilgrimage displayed West African gold from Cairo to Mecca. The routes spread Islam and Arabic literacy inland. Portuguese Atlantic shipping from the 15th century and the Moroccan invasion of 1591 broke the system's monopoly.