Proudlyngwa:

Vertical routes were transsaharan routes.
Horizontal routes were trans Atlantic.
Western Africa could not trade with their selves due to the nature of their forests and coastal lines but could trade with the Arabs due to the savanna plains.

That being said trade and interaction was very limited along the west African and Central African region in respect to the European and Asian regions as I mentioned earlier due to no domesticated mode of transport i.e camels and horses..

The Europeans had mastered sea travel long before the coming of our lord Jesus.

That is past now.
What is holding the black man from moving forward is what has held them from moving forward in all ages.

Greed, prejudice, mental Laziness and god mentality.

ernieboy:

"
west africans did not trade with themselves"
who did they trade with then. Europeans were not able to venture far out into the seas until they developed navigational technology that could help in sea travel. FYI the age of exploration started around the 16th century. read more about it here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery

Holuwahyomzzy:
But why do these people self give lady's names to this hurricane like Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Catrina, Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Wilma...I'm not understanding..

rabzy:



Greed, prejudice etc are human frailties and it is evident in all cultures, it is probably more apparent in the european/asian cultures than Africa at least with respect to scale.

I would say Necessity and the disconnect from the cradle and centers of civilization caused by the forbidding sahara desert made made us be light years behind.

Proudlyngwa:


They traded more with the tauregs and Arabs.
Or rather the Arabs and tauregs traded more with them.

That is why you have more Arabic induced Hausa in west Africa, because they had medium of transport from Mali, Senegal Benin, Ghana to Nigeria, what does that tell you about the flow of trade it was more north of the Niger. That is a vertical movement. The Great Benin empire did not exceed from on it's happening to dahomey and it was very limited.

No matter how you want to see it, interaction within west Africa was very limited. Due to the nature of the terrains it was easier to go from London to Bavaria than to go from on it's happening to the Congo or Dahomey to Senegal. The terrain was terribly unnavigable and not worth it.

The exploration you talked about was between Atlantic and pacific, there had always been sea faring around the Mediterranean.

Proudlyngwa:


The Sahara desert was not a problem. It was the uncharted Niger and it's surrounding mangroves that was the issue. The were almost unpassable.

Greed is a human nature.
Black Africans take theirs to an unforgiving level.
As you rightly said lack of necessity made us stagmant

RoyalBlak007:
Reaction

Ehiscotch:
Nigeria is blessed with all kinds of natural resources and a natural-disaster free region yet we are still underdeveloped. Floods that should be minor or harmless would end up leading to loss of lives and properties because of poor drainage systems or the lack of it. I weeep for Naija.

Holuwahyomzzy:
But why do these people self give lady's names to this hurricane like Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Catrina, Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Wilma...I'm not understanding..

edoboy33:
signs of the end time


God is punishing them for their sins

this is just the begining

Sodom and gommorrah treatment will soon fall on them

rabzy:


The terrain was harsh and difficult to traverse, but india had similar rain forest and mountainous terrain and they did a great deal of trading, though it was people that came to them and they didnt do much of the reaching out probably because they also did not have a need to. Large expansive empires and conquest is very tough to achieve in such places. Such conquest generally allows for peace to reign, knowledge to be stored and preserved and learning to be prioritized.

rabzy:


Even if we chart the Niger, and how much would that achieve?. We would still be revolving around people with similar knowledge and know-how, with similar food etc. Then it was difficult to chart the Niger because if you venture just from warri to kainji, you would have crossed the territories of the of Edos, the Ibos, the Igalas, and other tribes with varying allegiances and you cant guarantee that you would make the journey to a good distance. Of course every tribe /people could navigate masterfully its own section of the river, but to take on the whole river, you would need a King with Jurisdiction or Diplomatic power across a great section of the river to achieve such and no such power emerged due to various reasons.

The acclaimed first centre of Civilization was the sumerian/babylonian, then the egyptians, assyrians, babylonians, greeks romans etc. the people of these cultures were able to pass knowledge easily from one to the other and they all copied and improved on each others architecture, religion, science etc. It led to a boom fro them, great empires were created which facilitated peace for decades and centuries allowing prosperity and learning.

After the collapse of the Roman empire, tribal warlords took over and Europe became balkanized, the shift and momentum i advancement went to the Islamic Caliphates and other Asian Civilizations that could maintain large territories, the Huns became great when ghengis khan brutalized them into an Empire, the Indian's best years were the years of the Mughal Emperors, China with all its dynasties stretched across vast areas and knowledge florished. In fact Europe forgot about themselves and had to learn about their past from Arabic literature, because when their empires were about to decline, the sun of the Islamic caliphates was about to rise and they have painstakingly written down all they have learnt from others.
Sub-saharan Africa started became noticed by the rest of the world when the Arab Merchants and Preachers conquered the desert and talked about people beyond the desert. They brought with them knowledge we didn't have, religion we didnt know and a host of other things that have become commonplace north of the desert.

Proudlyngwa:


The desert was never a hindrance as there was a trade route across the desert all the way to the Congo basin. Like I said, the problem was across the horizontal coastlines and it's corresponding forests. It was not easy to move men and resources across it to capture new territories, therefore things like building fortresses, weapons on large scale and transportation methods could not be learned.
Also we had a lot of mangrove swamps with its associated illnesses making people to label them as evil forests and keep away from them, thereby damping the spirit of exploration.
South of the Niger was just not worth it in an expansionist view and somehow comfortable making them not to evolve.

Proudlyngwa:

You are being unfair to the Indian with that.

The sub continent of India was far more navigable and a steady route for a lot of things.
It has had varying stages of civilization and conquest


India might never have been a warring dynasty but it was a circular route with constant travel and cultural integration.

Nbote:
It has sucked back d water to go gather momentum to com cause havoc..

rabzy:


Not trying to be unfair, because they have had a great history for thousands of years, they gave the world sex education, algebra and a host of fine stuffs. But like you said it was just within the indian subcontinent, they never bothered to venture far beyond the khyber pass, the mountains of afghanistan nor did they slug it out with the chinese. They did well trading among themselves in the subcontinent. They remain divided in different small kingdoms that even black indentured/slaves from eastern africans the siddis were able to carve out kingdoms for themselves. Despite that things still got to them, they were not too far behind in the happenings around the world but that cannot be said of sub-saharan Africa and i blame the desert for it .
Once people that matters see that great sea of sand, it was like that was the end of the world, the berbers, bedoins and tuaregs live in the desert and so could get to the fringes of existence but how much knowledge did these goat herders had to offer when things where shaping up in the Mediterranean, then they were even worse off than us, they were bandits and marauders scourging the desert and being a terror to anyone who venture into it.

Then also look at places like South America and the Caribbeans, places that were not separated by sand but by a great ocean, what kind of civilization grew there, the aztecs, the various warring native american tribes, the aborigines, they were no different from us. When the civilizations of the Mediterranean came they swept them all away in a few decades just like us, not because we were not brave but becaue we had been cut off from knowledge, we were kindergartens in a University environment and we are still playing catch-up.

rabzy:


Am not disputing any of the above facts but its also a fact that travel across the Sahara desert is tough and not for the faint hearted. in fact while the forest and mangrove etc has been conquered now, travelling through the desert is still very tough till now. In the middle ages crossing such a zone (especially without mechanized transport) is worthwhile only when exceptional circumstances cause the expected gain to outweigh the cost and danger. The caravans would be guided by highly paid Berbers who knew the desert and could ensure safe passage from their fellow desert nomads. The survival of a caravan was precarious and would rely on careful coordination. Runners would be sent ahead to oases so that water could be shipped out to the caravan when it was still several days away, as the caravans could not easily carry enough with them to make the full journey.
Now while merchants can take such risks because of expected gains, the ample dissemination of ideas, sharing of ideas, acculturation was near impossible by scholars, journeymen, adventurers was difficult compare that to rome adopting greek ideas and appropriating, the Arabs learning all they can from past european civilization and india and then Europe waking from their slumber and ushering a new dawn. Then look at scholars moving from Italy to study at the great library in Alexandria in Egypt, English scholars going to German universities and russia eventually catching up by importing scholars to their schools, all happening with relative travel ease. Such synergy aided them a lot.

While such knowledge was available just north of the sahara and shared among them and it spread all the way to india and china. It never got here until milleniums later, by the time it came it was in trickles through islamic scholars. Was there a deliberate policy by these people not to bring it down south. No, its just that people dont just go down south, only few daredevils and sherlocks and later religious zealots. Europe knew about china, india places farther than here long before they had a sniff of us.
Almost everybody in world has learnt to write extensively for hundreds and thousands of years, here we could not write down our thoughts, except in very few places where we use a primitive form of hieroglyphics such he nsibidi writings, but Egypt has been writing their history for thousands of years even before the greeks, the romans, saxons, celts, franks. Why didn't we even get to know how to write, there was a need for it, we even tried to do it but others up north learnt from each other and moved in light-year leaps while we were barely crawling.

rabzy:


Not trying to be unfair, because they have had a great history for thousands of years, they gave the world sex education, algebra and a host of fine stuffs. But like you said it was just within the indian subcontinent, they never bothered to venture far beyond the khyber pass, the mountains of afghanistan nor did they slug it out with the chinese. They did well trading among themselves in the subcontinent. They remain divided in different small kingdoms that even black indentured/slaves from eastern africans the siddis were able to carve out kingdoms for themselves. Despite that things still got to them, they were not too far behind in the happenings around the world but that cannot be said of sub-saharan Africa and i blame the desert for it .
Once people that matters see that great sea of sand, it was like that was the end of the world, the berbers, bedoins and tuaregs live in the desert and so could get to the fringes of existence but how much knowledge did these goat herders had to offer when things where shaping up in the Mediterranean, then they were even worse off than us, they were bandits and marauders scourging the desert and being a terror to anyone who venture into it.

Then also look at places like South America and the Caribbeans, places that were not separated by sand but by a great ocean, what kind of civilization grew there, the aztecs, the various warring native american tribes, the aborigines, they were no different from us. When the civilizations of the Mediterranean came they swept them all away in a few decades just like us, not because we were not brave but becaue we had been cut off from knowledge, we were kindergartens in a University environment and we are still playing catch-up.